Robert Brueggeman has joined the North Dakota State University Plant Pathology Department as a barley pathologist and assistant professor.

Brueggeman’s research specialty is the genetics and molecular biology of cereal disease resistance.

He is working on the rapid deployment of resistance to the virulent race of Ug99 wheat stem rust, which also affects barley. This rust disease has emerged in Uganda and eventually may move to North America.

Fusarium head blight, another difficult disease of barley and wheat, also is a focus of Brueggeman’s research. He is establishing a nursery at the NDSU Langdon Research Extension Center to evaluate barley lines for resistance.

Brueggeman also is collaborating with Timothy Friesen at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northern Plains Research Center in Fargo to identify spot-type net blotch (STNB)- and net-type net blotch-resistant barley varieties. STNB is an economically damaging foliar barley disease in many cereal-producing regions of the world. It recently was identified in North Dakota.

Brueggeman completed his bachelor of science, master of science and doctorate at Washington State University. He worked in the barley molecular genetics/genomics lab at WSU for 12 years.

NDSU Agriculture Communication