Jared Crain
Associate Director
Jared Crain is a research assistant professor at Kansas State University. His research is focused on enhancing the plant breeding process to increase the rate of genetic gain. This interest has led Crain to using cutting edge genomics, phenomics, and digital tools to improve the plant breeding process. He has worked in many of the emerging plant breeding areas including building and evaluating field-based high-throughput phenotyping platforms, application of uncrewed aerial vehicles, and next generation sequencing methodologies. While his formal training was in wheat breeding, he has worked extensively to implement genomic selection methodologies into emerging crops. In intermediate wheatgrass, a species that is being domesticated as a perennial grain crop, application of genomic selection has reduced the breeding cycle time from two years to six months, theoretically quadrupling the rate of genetic gain. In addition to being an active in researcher, Crain was the director of the Feed the Future Applied Wheat Genomics Innovation Lab that routinely processed over 15,000 samples per year to implement genomic selection in the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center wheat breeding program. As Assoc. Director of CRCIL, Jared is excited to bring his knowledge and application of genomics assisted breeding to a rice, wheat, sorghum, and millet to enhance climate resilience of these vital cereals.