Breeding & Local Phenotyping

As a USDA Grape Breeder, I will be leading a wine-grape breeding program for the Mid-Atlantic. For this, we are in the process of establishing a breeding vineyard starting in 2023. The program will focus on developing wine grape varieties that are resistant to diseases primarily focusing on grapevine downy mildew. A combination of traditional and modern molecular markers, developed by the VitisGen project will be used for selections.

Dr. Clark is the Program Director and one of the leaders of Objective 3: Sticks-in-the-ground. As a member of both the Breeding and Extension & Outreach teams, he will contribute to equipping regional Extension programs with management tools for resistant vines which can readily integrated into current production practices. He will also work on advancing resistant selections to multi-state testing. Dr. Clark's Ph.D. is in Applied Plant Sciences from the University of Minnesota (2014).