University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Jinliang Yang, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture, has been named the Charles O. Gardner Professor of Agronomy.
The professorship honors Gardner, a native from Tecumseh, Nebraska. He was a trailblazer in agronomy and quantitative genetics, shaping agricultural science during his 39-year tenure at Nebraska. Gardner pioneered research on hybrid vigor in corn and revolutionized breeding methodologies. His use of cytoplasmic male sterility in sorghum and isozyme markers in maize laid the groundwork for modern allele mapping and mass selection techniques, directly enhancing global food security.
Yang earned a Bachelor of Science in bioengineering in 2005 and a master’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology in 2008 at China Agricultural University. He received his doctoral degree in interdepartmental genetics in 2014 from Iowa State University.
His professional career at Nebraska began in 2017 as an assistant professor in plant quantitative and statistical genomics in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture. He was promoted to associate professor in 2023.
“I was drawn to Nebraska by the opportunity to advance corn genetics and genomics research in a collaborative environment,” Yang said. “There is no better place than Cornhusker Nation for doing corn research.”
Nebraska’s strong emphasis on agricultural innovation and its state-of-the-art facilities, such as the LemnaTec High-Throughput Plant Phenotyping system, aligned with his goal to bridge genetic research with practical crop improvement.
Yang’s research continues Gardner’s legacy by focusing on hybrid vigor, leveraging advanced genomics and phenomics tools to bridge foundational principles with modern innovation. His research integrates phenomics, genomics, transcriptomics and microbiome data to improve crop traits like nitrogen efficiency, stress tolerance and hybrid performance. Key projects include:
- Maize Population Genetics: Studying genetic and epigenetic inheritance patterns during maize domestication and adaptation processes.
- Crop Nitrogen Use Efficiency: Focusing on gene functional study to optimize nitrogen uptake, signaling, and transcriptional regulation with the ultimate goal of reducing fertilizer dependency for crop production.
- Plant and Microbiome Interactions: Investigating how root-colonizing microbes influence crop resilience under varying nitrogen conditions.
“Through decades of leadership at UNL, Dr. Gardner didn’t just advance hybrid vigor research—he redefined global approaches to crop improvement,” Yang said. “Today, equipped with cutting-edge technologies, we’re expanding his vision to forge a sustainable food system.”
Yang has authored 56 peer-reviewed articles of which 49 were published since he joined the university. Publications include Science, Nature Plants, Nature Genetics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Communications, Genetics, eLife, and other esteemed journals.
Yang is a member of Maize Genetics Cooperation and the American Society of Plant Biology. He serves as a technical steering group member for Germplasm Enhancement of Maize, a national public maize breeding program, where he provides technical guidance and expertise. Since 2022, he has also co-organized the maize workshop at the international Plant and Animal Genomics Conference.
“This honor isn’t just mine—it belongs to my students, colleagues, and the growers who inspire our research,” Yang said. “Sustainability isn’t a buzzword; it’s a commitment to ensuring future generations inherit a resilient food system, one that aligns with Dr. Gardner’s enduring mission.”
Supported by the Hoegemeyer Family Fund for Agronomy and the McConnell Fund for Agronomy, the Charles O. Gardner Professor of Agronomy endowed professorship comes with an annual stipend and operating support.
More details at: https://go.unl.edu/rm6w