Meet Vijay Tiwari, an associate professor of small grains genetics in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture at the University of Maryland. Tiwari joined the USWBSI almost six years ago as a funded PI. His projects focus on breeding soft red winter wheat with FHB resistance for the Mid-Atlantic region as well as identifying novel sources of FHB resistance in both wheat and barley through the use of wild relatives and mutant populations.

Discovering Wheat Breeding and Genetics

Tiwari was born and raised in the ancient city of Varanasi, India. He graduated with his doctorate degree in plant genetics at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. His Ph.D. advisor, H.S. Dhaliwal, was the first person to introduce him to the area of wheat genetics and breeding. Dhaliwal has been Tiwari’s biggest inspiration during his career. Following completion of his studies, he moved to the United States to pursue postdoctoral studies. Throughout his journey to become a wheat breeder, Tiwari had the opportunity to meet and work with several remarkable scientists including Bikram Gill, Jorge Dubcovsky, Mark Sorrells, and Ravi Singh.

Collaborating to Combat FHB

Being a part of the USWBSI gives Tiwari a strong sense of belonging. This enhances his ability to deliver results to the farmers and stakeholders. “It’s a rewarding experience to see how interconnected we all are through this vital platform,” said Tiwari. Being a part of both the Variety Development and Host Resistance Southern Winter Wheat Coordinated Project and the Gene Discovery and Engineering Resistance Research Area, he is able to share germplasm and results, conduct coordinated trials, and identify colleagues who are open to discussing outcomes and new projects.

Tiwari loves to be able to identify novel sources of FHB resistance and improve soft winter wheat varieties for farmers. During his short time with the USWBSI he has released a couple wheat cultivars through the University of Maryland and one of them has excellent FHB resistant. He also works on a multi-PI project implementing doubled haploids as a method for speed breeding FHB resistance into soft winter wheat. Even though pathogens continue to evolve and more favorable environments may present future challenges, through the collaborative nature of the USWBSI, Tiwari believes we can sustainably reduce losses by breeding more resistant varieties, developing new fungicide chemistries, and improving management practices.

Identifying and Transferring New Genes for FHB

Tiwari will be presenting at the 2025 National Fusarium Head Blight Forum on Sunday, December 7 in Denver, Colorado. His presentation titled “Genomics Tools and Germplasm Resources to Enhance FHB-Resistance Genes in Wheat” will focus on the collaboration to combine resources and tools to identify and transfer new genes and alleles for FHB.

For more information about Dr. Vijay Tiwari’s research, visit his faculty page..

To learn more about others in the FHB community, check out all the previous USWBSI Featured Researchers/Advocates.