John E. Erpelding

John Erpelding is a Research Geneticist with the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees from North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND and his Ph.D. degree from Montana State University in Bozeman, MT. His research focused on genetic studies of disease and insect resistance in small grain crops and the application of DNA markers for crop improvement.

Dr. Erpelding’s postdoctoral research involved developing SSR DNA markers for loblolly pine and cDNA libraries for soybean. In 2000, Dr. Erpelding accepted a Research Geneticist position at the Tropical Agriculture Research Station in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico to manage the sorghum germplasm collection. His research focused on characterizing the collection for disease resistance and developing methodology for large-scale phenotypic screening of the collection. Dr. Erpelding joined the Crop Genetics Research Unit in Stoneville, MS in 2010. His current research is focused on identify and characterizing new sources of reniform nematode resistance from cotton diploid species, transferring this resistance to tetraploid upland cotton, and developing DNA markers associated with resistance for marker-assisted breeding.