If you don’t like the weather in Missouri, just wait a few hours. But this unpredictable natural phenomenon makes growing certain plants, fruits, vegetables and herbs a challenge. Dr. Chin-Feng Hwang, professor in the Darr School of Agriculture at Missouri State University, recently received $297,584 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture for a research project to look at how to breed more disease-resistant, cold-hardy grapes.

“The overall goals of our research program are to use DNA markers to rapidly deploy favorable alleles, accelerate breeding cycles for new cultivar release, train a new generation of plant breeders and attract new students to the agricultural sciences,” said Hwang.

The project, “Expanding Research on Berry and Juice Chromatographic Analysis to Expedite Grape Cultivar Improvement and Build Education Capacity,” will also look at ways to improve the efficiency of the breeding process. As an agricultural scientist, he’s also concerned about the sustainability of grape breeding, including decreasing labor needs, energy consumption and pesticides, noted Hwang.

Students in Hwang’s lab at the Fruit Experiment Station on the Mountain Grove campus will use the latest technology to perform much of the research and identify components of the molecular structure that are associated with desirable and undesirable fruit quality traits.

“This project will accelerate the direct release of Norton-based new cultivars and improve efficiency of selection in subsequent generations,” he said.

This material is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number 2016-70001-24623.

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