8:19 a.m., Oct. 7, 2009----The weather during the summer of 2009 might have led to an uncooperative corn harvest, but the research going on in the cornfields at the University of Delaware College of Agriculture and Natural Resources was booming thanks to the installation of a new irrigation system and the research of Randy Wisser, assistant professor of plant genetics.

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Wisser is studying the genetic basis of resistance to multiple diseases in field corn. Using public corn resources and cross-breeding techniques to develop new populations and tracking genes with molecular markers to study inheritance, Wisser is able to pinpoint the genes that condition resistance or susceptibility to multiple diseases.

Upon coming to UD in 2009, Wisser joined Jim Hawk, professor of plant and soil sciences and director of UD's Corn Breeding and Genetics Program, to study disease resistant lines in the corn plots on the CANR agricultural experimental station -- the outdoor laboratory. In 2006, Hawk and his research team were able to identify a gene that has the capability to provide corn with resistance to Colletotrichum graminicola, a fungus that causes anthracnose stalk rot.

By conducting research that bridges plant molecular genetics with field corn breeding, Wisser is developing methods to study natural variation and understand the genetic basis of plant improvement. The key is to study the mechanistic basis behind these disease causing genes by sorting our which traits are due to genetic variation versus environmental variation.

In 2009, CANR bought a new irrigation system from O.A. Newton to help make corn research more efficient. This system is known for its uniform application of water, having no time constraints and being far less laborious than previous irrigation systems that had to be reinstalled every year. In fact, O.A. Newtown recycled the previous irrigation system and was able to use the aluminum for its own business ventures.

Wisser is currently in the process of developing a course scheduled to begin in 2010 and is collaborating with Hawk to develop short-cycling plants as a teaching tool for quantitative genetics.

Wisser received his bachelor's degree in biology from Florida International University. Thereafter, he worked as a technician for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service in Miami where he was involved in tropical agricultural genetics research, including work on Theobroma cacao (the chocolate tree).

Wisser then pursued his Ph.D. at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., where he graduated with a degree in plant breeding and genetics. While at Cornell, under the mentorship of Rebecca Nelson, he developed his research focus on the genetic architecture of disease resistance in the cereals, conducting work in rice and maize.

Wisser completed a two and one-half year post-doctoral residency at North Carolina State University (NCSU), mentored by Peter Balint-Kurti in plant pathology and Jim Holland in crop science.

In 2007, Wisser received a USDA-National Research Initiative post-doctoral grant to develop an approach aimed at characterizing the genetic basis of a populations' response to selection. It was at North Carolina State where he honed his skills in quantitative genetics, working on his grant project while also leading a study on multiple disease resistance.

Article by Rachael Dubinsky