My research interests are centred on the development of genetics tools and genomics resources for barley and their application to breeding. This underpins an interest in association genetics for agronomically important traits that has involved the development of high-throughput SNP genotyping capabilities. This work has fostered closer ties with industry in particular breeding companies with UK-based programmes. Interactions on dissection of genetic control of economic traits and the development of pre-breeding material will form the basis of much future work as will the possibilities that an ability to influence distribution and frequency of recombination would bring to longer-term breeding goals.
Current research projects
My initial research was based around studies on the quantitative genetics of Brassica spp. (University of Birmingham and John Innes Centre). However since coming to the Institute I have concentrated almost exclusively on barley and have been involved mainly in the development of molecular markers and their application to questions relating to the patterns of genetic and functional diversity in barley.