Dr. Deng's Laboratory 

Overview 

Our lab focuses on developing new ornamental plant varieties and breeding emerging crops for the horticultural industries and consumers.

We research and apply latest genetic, genomic, and biotechnological tools to improve breeding efficiency and precision. We train graduate students and disseminate research findings to the community and stakeholders.

What we do

Our breeding and research involve a wide group of specialty crops, including caladium, lantana, blackberry, citrus, hops, pomegranate, raspberry, impatiens, ligustrum, nandina, petunia, and porterweed.

Our main research areas include:

• Develop new varieties with novel characteristics, improved crop yield, enhanced resistance/tolerance to diseases and stresses.
• Sterilize invasive ornamental plants and introduce non-invasive varieties.
• Improve the adaptation of emerging crops to subtropical environments.
• Discover and create novel traits and characteristics in ornamental and fruit crops.
• Genetic research to understand the mode of inheritance for important traits.
• Sequence, assemble, and analyze plant genomes and transcriptomes.
• Characterize, clone, and edit genes for disease resistance and herbicide tolerance.

Impact

The horticulture industries in Florida are an important contributor to the state’s economy, employment, and rural development.

Florida growers in these industries face severe challenges including devastating diseases and spread of invasive plants, which negatively impact the grower business sustainability and Florida’s environment.

In response to industry needs, we have focused on plant breeding and applying new technologies to assist the industries with improving their business competitiveness and sustainability.

Lab Accomplishments

1. Discovered sources of resistance to Pythium root rot and Fusarium tuber rot in caladium, resistance to powdery mildew in gerbera, immunity to downy mildew in impatiens, resistance to leaf rust in blackberry, and resistance to anthracnose fruit rot and leaf spot in pomegranate.

2. Developed and released 51 new cultivars in caladium, gerbera, and lantana.

3. Revealed the genetic basis of important characteristics in caladium, gerbera, impatiens, and lantana. We discovered new chromosome number and ploidy variation in caladium, lantana, and porterweed; created new ploidy levels in gerbera and porterweed; discovered the production of unreduced female gametes and apomixis in lantana; developed effective strategies to sterilize lantana, nandina, privet, and jatropha.

4. Developed molecular markers and identified candidate genes for resistance to powdery mildew in gerbera and immunity to downy mildew in impatiens. Generated 5 de novo genomes, re-sequenced nearly 140 genomes, and characterized 30 transcriptomes. We were the first in the world to successfully edit DMR6 and SWEET1 genes in citrus and engineer strong citrus canker resistance. 

• MS Students' Work

  Links coming soon! 

• PhD Students' Work

  Links coming soon!

• Dr. Deng's Work
  • Extension Publications 
  • Research Publications