Woody Landscape Plant Breeding and Genetics – Research assistantships will be available for highly qualified students at the M.S. and Ph.D. level.  Specific areas of study include; the study of the disease biology and development of a high through-put screening protocol to promote the discovery of canker resistant landscape trees; the field evaluation and biochemical analysis of woody plant species with potential to serve as novel sources of cellulosic ethanol; continued efforts to identify and utilize genes conferring resistance to black spot disease in rose; and a comparative genomics study of resistance gene analogs (RGAs) in rosaceous crops in an effort to develop family-wide tools and approaches to recover and manipulate disease resistance genes in Rosaceae plant breeding efforts.  For more information, please contact Dr. Stan C. Hokanson, hokan017@umn.edu.

Turfgrass Breeding and Genetics -  Research will focus on rust resistance in perennial ryegrass.  Experience in turfgrass science, soils, agronomy, plant pathology, or horticulture preferred. Assistantship includes salary (currently $19,718), health insurance, and tuition.  Two assistantships are available beginning January 2008.  For more information, please contact Dr.

Eric Watkins, ewatkins@umn.edu or 612-624-7496.

Fruit Breeding and Genetics.  A PhD student to conduct studies on the inheritance of fruit quality traits in apple, and possibly other traits, and relating phenotypic information to DNA markers to assess the potential for marker-aided selection. Contact Dr. Jim Luby, lubyx001@umn.edu.