Brief Bio

Dr. Guorong Zhang is a wheat breeder at Agricultural Research Center-Hays. His program aims to develop hard red and hard white winter wheat varieties for semi-arid western Kansas and surrounding regions. Prior to joining Kansas State University in 2012, Dr. Zhang worked as a biofuel crop breeder at Tennessee State University, and as a barley breeder in China. Dr. Zhang got his postdoctoral training in fields of soybean breeding and sweet cherry breeding at Michigan State University. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Plant Breeding from North Dakota State University, a M.S. degree in Genetics from Zhejiang University (China), and a Bachelor degree in Agronomy from Zhejiang Agricultural University (China).

Research

Dr. Zhang's wheat breeding program aims to develop hard red and hard white winter wheat varieties with adaptation to the semi-arid western Kansas and surrounding regions. His specific breeding goals are grain yield, milling and baking quality, drought tolerance, and locally important diseases including wheat streak mosaic virus, barley yellow dwarf virus, stripe rust, leaf rust, stem rust, Hessian fly, and stem sawfly.

Read about the WKREC wheat breeding program

Education

Doctor of Philosophy in Plant Breeding and Genetics
Department of Plant Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND
Dissertation title: Kernel shattering and its relationship with Fusarium head blight and other traits in wheat

Master of Science in Genetics

Department of Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Thesis title: Studies on heredity, growth and development, physio-biochemistry of albino-lemma barley

Bachelor of Agriculture in Agronomy, Specialization of Seed Science

Department of Agronomy, Zhejiang Agricultural University, Hangzhou, China
Thesis title: Studies on heterosis of barley hybrids of karyocytoplasmic interaction type