Katherine Frels
Assistant Professor Department of Agronomy & Horticulture, Plant Breeding and Genetics, NE Food For Health Center University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Contact
- Address
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PLSH 377H
Lincoln, NE 68583-0915 - Phone
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402-472-8709 On-campus 2-8709
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kfrels2@unl.edu
Small Grains Breeding and Genetics
Dr. Katherine Frels leads the UNL Small Grains Breeding program where she develops new winter wheat, barley, and triticale varieties. Her research targets improvements for yield, nutritional value and end-use quality, disease and pest resistance, and abiotic stress tolerance that will deliver economic opportunities for producers. Her breeding program utilizes cutting-edge genomic and phenomic tools to deliver small grains varieties adapted to the U.S. Great Plains region.
Key Achievements:
- Released hard red winter wheat varieties NE Fenster and NE Daybreak, which fill early and later maturity production niches while delivering high yields
- Released the two-gene Clearfield hard red winter wheat NE Prism CLP
- Released NT Pronto, a new early maturing triticale cultivar with unique adaptation to cover crop and early season forage cropping systems
- Released NB10425, a new improved yield forage barley
Education
Background:
- B.S., Iowa State University, 2011
- Ph.D., University of Nebraska–Lincoln, 2015