Ashley Yow

Lead Advisor: Dr. Massimo Iorizzo

Home Department: Horticultural Science

Research Summary: Ashley is currently studying genomics of natural flowering in pineapple. Pineapple production is limited by stress-induced natural flowering, which causes reduced fruit size and non-uniform maturation in pineapple fields. Various hormonal treatments are used to delay natural flowering induction of pineapple. At the end of a growing season, hormones are then applied to induce flowering uniformly throughout a growing field. The purpose of Ashley’s research is to understand how to control stress-related natural flowering through incorporating genomic data into a molecular breeding program. The results found in this study will contribute to the development of stress-tolerant pineapple varieties, which will help reduce labor inputs, chemical usage, and production costs.