His research involves developing molecular markers in soybean and common bean, tagging genes underlying important agronomic traits such as disease resistance using molecular markers in assisted selection, and cloning genes that control disease resistance. The use of computers, electronic sensing devices and microcomputer-based equipment has also become instrumental. Equipment is available to measure a plant's physical growth, its environmental parameters, and dynamic processes that contribute to its growth without harming the plant. Automatic sampling has transferred research from traditional wet chemistry in the lab to highly precise analytical chemistry. A laboratory screening technique developed at Harrow supports work by other AAFC researchers on white mould resistance in soybean by confirming that transgenic plants are resistant to the disease.
Harrow continues to have a significant land base for conducting field experiments.
This also allows technologies developed in the lab to be transferred to the field for demonstration and practical use. For thousands of years humans have selected plants that are higher yielding, better tasting, or otherwise more attractive. Crop varieties selected by early humans and improved by modern plant breeders form the basis of today's sophisticated and highly productive agriculture. To deal with this problem, plant breeders and geneticists have been identifying, cataloging and mapping single gene markers in higher plants in hopes of using the markers associated with a desirable trait to help with selection. Until recently, genetic markers used to develop linkage maps in plants have been those affecting those characters that are easily seen.