Kevin P Smith

Kevin P Smith
Professor
He/Him/His
[email protected]
612-290-7656
311 Hayes Hall
Smith Lab Website
Education

Ph.D.: University of Wisconsin (1997)
Year Appointed: 1998
Rank: Professor

Areas of Interest

Breeding and Genetics of Barley, Oat, and Silphium

Teaching

Agro 1661W Engaging Plant Science

Research

Our research is aimed at (1) understanding the genetics of traits that will make barley profitable and sustainable in the Midwest and (2) applying that genetic understanding to develop improved varieties through breeding. Our breeding program develops spring-sown and fall-sown (winter) barley varieties. Our spring breeding program has been in place since the early 1920’s and has been focused on varieties suited to the malting and brewing industries. As such, the primary traits of interest our yield, malting quality traits, and disease resistance, in particular Fusarium head blight. Our winter breeding program started in 2009 and the major emphasis is to improve winter hardiness, yield, and malting quality. Introducing winter barley in Minnesota cropping systems could help increase crop diversity, improve ecosystem services such as improved soil conservation, nutrient cycling, and weed suppression in addition to increasing yield and facilitating earlier harvest.

To accomplish our breeding goals we are actively involved in implementing and evaluating a variety of breeding methodologies. We use genetic markers in our program including those that are identified through bi-parental QTL mapping and genome-wide association studies (GWAS). This has lead to the use of marker assisted selection (MAS) to select for desirable alleles as well as a genomic selection (GS) approach that uses genome-wide markers to make predictions about important traits that can be used in selection.

Select Publications

Gangwar, T., A. Susko, S. Baranova, M. Guala, K. Smith, and D. Heuschele. 2023. Multi-scale modelling predicts plant stem bending behaviour in response to wind to inform lodging resistance. R. Soc. open sci.10221410221410. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221410

Massman, C., Meints, B., Hernandez, J., Kunze, K., Smith, K. P., Sorrells, M. E., Hayes, P. M., & Gutierrez, L. (2023). Genomic prediction of threshability in naked barley. Crop Science, 63, 674– 689. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20907

Brzozowski, L. J., Campbell, M. T., Hu, H., Yao, L., Caffe, M., Gutiérrez, L., Smith, K. P., Sorrells, M. E., Gore, M. A., & Jannink, J.-L. (2023). Genomic prediction of seed nutritional traits in biparental families of oat (Avena sativa). The Plant Genome, 00, e20370. https://doi.org/10.1002/tpg2.20370

Sadok, W., J. Wiersma, B.J. Steffenson, S.S. Snapp, K.P. Smith. 2022. Improving winter barley adaptation to freezing and heat stresses in the U.S. Midwest: bottlenecks and opportunities. Field Crop Res. 286:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2022.108635

Neyhart, J. L., Silverstein, K. A. T., & Smith, K. P. (2022). Accurate predictions of barley phenotypes using genomewide markers and environmental covariates. Crop Science, 00, 1– 13. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20782

Price, J. H., Van Tassel, D. L., Picasso, V. D., & Smith, K. P. (2022). Assessing phenotypic diversity in silflower (Silphium integrifolium Michx.) to identify traits of interest for domestication selection. Crop Science, 62, 1443– 1460. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20748

Price, J.H., A.R. Raduski, Y. Brandvain, D.L. Van Tassel and K.P. Smith. Development of first linkage map for Silphium integrifolium (Asteraceae) enables identification of sporophytic self-incompatibility locus. Heredity 128, 304–312 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-022-00530-4

Sallam, A., K.P. Smith, G. Hu, J. Sherman, P.S. Baenziger, J. Wiersma, C. Duley, E.J. Stockinger, M.E. Sorrells, T. Szinyei, I.G. Loskutov, O. N. Kovaleva, J. Eberly and B. J. Steffenson. 2021. Cold Conditioned: Discovery of Novel Alleles for Low Temperature Tolerance in the Vavilov Barley Collection. Front. Plant Sci. December 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.800284.

Neyhart, J. L., Gutiérrez, L., & Smith, K. P. (2021). Optimizing the choice of test locations for multi-trait genotypic evaluation. Crop Science, 1– 11. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20657

McNish I., Smith KP. Oat crown rust disease severity estimated at many time points using multispectral aerial photos. Phytopathology. 2021 Aug 12. doi: 10.1094/PHYTO-09-20-0442-R

Price J.H., Brandvain Y., Smith K.P. Measurements of lethal and nonlethal inbreeding depression inform the de novo domestication of Silphium integrifolium. American Journal of Botany. 2021 Jun;108(6):980-992. doi: 10.1002/ajb2.1679. Epub 2021 Jun 10. PMID: 34114217.

Read more of Kevin Smith's published research here.