University of Wisconsin Vegetable Crops Research Unit Cucumber Genetics, Genomics and Breeding Laboratory Postdoc Research Associate Feifan Chen
What is the name of your institution and academic department or section?
USDA-ARS, USDA-ARS Vegetable Crops Research Unit, Department of Horticulture, University of Wisconsin-Madison
What is your position?
Post Doc
Who is your major professor ?
Dr. Yiqun Weng
What is your hometown?
Wuhan, Hubei Province, China
What is the focus of your work?
plant breeding and plant pathology
Introduce yourself—your background, where you are now, and your current research focus.
I have been working on cucumber genetics for nearly 9 years mainly on horticulturally important traits such as plant height, fruit shape/size. I am working as a postdoc in Department of Horticulture in University of Wisconsin, Madison. I am currently focusing on pathogen resistance to DM, PM, etc.
Why did you choose to work with Cucurbits, plant breeding, plant pathology, genomics, horticulture, agricultural economics or crop production?
The project for my master degree led me to the field of Cucurbits. As working on this continuously for my Ph. D., the research and accomplishment has been promoting the passion to work with Cucurbits. I am interested in all aspects in regarding to cucumbers.
What do you hope to accomplish during your time working on the CucCAP grant, and what do you most look forward to in this position?
I hope to make my contribution to the research on resistance to DM and PM, which are the disaster to cucumber production.
Please provide a brief description of your research.
Cucumber inbred lines, WI7088 and WI7120 being the germplasms of most resistance to DM are very valuable resources to improve other commercial cucumber production. We used these two lines to make cross with susceptible lines. Using the F2:3 population, we did QTL mapping to scan the locus for DM resistance, and developed Near-Isogenic Lines for fine mapping of these QTL. We found two major QTL DM4.1 and DM5.2 that highly contributed to DM resistance. We hope to exploit the molecular mechanism by which the candidate genes work against DM.
What is your favorite crop?
Cucumber.
