Sagar Adhikari Successfully Defends M.S. Thesis

Sagar Adhikari successfully defended his Plant Sciences M.S. thesis, “Pre-Breeding to Combine Disease Resistance and Agrotype Genes in Hard Winter Wheat'', on February 3, 2022, at North Dakota State University. He was advised by G. Francois Marais, professor and director of the hard winter wheat breeding project.

Adhikari focused on Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), a disease that causes loss in yield and quality of wheat. He used previously derived cross segregates and markers to transfer FHB resistance quantitative trait loci (QTL) obtained from hard spring wheat to the winter wheat cultivar 'ND Noreen'. “The developed inbred line can be used as a valuable resource for the NDSU winter wheat breeding program,” said Adhikari.

Adhikari is from Sarlahi, Nepal, and has a B.S. in Agriculture Sciences from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences in Bhairahawa, Nepal. 

He chose to pursue his M.S. at NDSU because of its reputation for research in small grains breeding. He credits the supportive nature of graduate students, faculty, and the learning environment for helping him during his graduate studies at NDSU. He recommends the Department of Plant Sciences to future students, saying, “[It is] a perfect place to get knowledge and gain skills to build your career as agriculture professionals.” 

During his time at NDSU, Adhikari received the Charles and Linda Moses Presidential Graduate Fellowship from the College of Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources. He was inducted into Gamma Sigma Delta, the honor society of agriculture. He also served as secretary of the Plant Sciences Graduate Student Association.

Adhikari plans to continue his graduate studies and pursue a Ph.D.

His graduate committee members were Marais, Phil McClean, Shaobin Zhong and Andrew Green.

Author: Kamie Beeson