Bonny Oloka
Research Scholar, Sweetpotato Breeding and Genetics Program
Bio
Bonny is a research scholar in the Potato and Sweetpotato Breeding and Genetics Programs at NC State University. His duties include: coordinating and conducting genomic-assisted potato and sweetpotato breeding activities; working collaboratively with local and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) team members to design and execute conventional and genomic selection breeding experiments; assisting with the development of an electronic data capture and database system to facilitate potato and sweetpotato improvement; collaborating with ongoing cultural management studies; and, collaborating with food and other scientists.
His research focuses on crop improvement using a combination of traditional and advanced plant genetics and breeding approaches. He is most interested in identifying useful genetic variants/alleles for important agronomic, pest and disease traits as well as nutritional/quality components using genomics, bioinformatics and quantitative genetics approaches. Bonny completed his Ph.D (Plant Breeding’18) from NCSU and went back to Uganda, where he worked as a senior research scientist prior to coming back “home” to NC State.
Publications
- Combining ability and gene action for resistance to Fusarium ear rot in tropical maize hybrids , Frontiers in Plant Science (2025)
- Advances in Potato and Sweetpotato Breeding at NC State , LSU Plant Science Symposium (2024)
- Genomic-Assisted Nutritional and Quality Breeding Efforts in Sweetpotato , Compendium of Plant Genomes (2024)
- The Future of Crop Improvement in Sweetpotato: Merging Traditional and Genomic-Assisted Breeding Methods , Compendium of Plant Genomes (2024)
- Breeding Cultivars for Resistance to the African Sweetpotato Weevils, Cylas puncticollis and Cylas brunneus, in Uganda: A Review of the Current Progress , Insects (2023)
- Genome-wide association study and pathway analysis to decipher loci associated with Fusarium ear rot resistance in tropical maize germplasm , Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution (2023)
- Guidelines for construction and management of mini screenhouse for sweetpotato seed production , (2023)
- Guidelines for construction and management of mini screenhouse for sweetpotato seed production , (2023)
- Heterotic gains, transgressive segregation and fitness cost of sweetpotato weevil resistance expression in a partial diallel cross of sweetpotato , Euphytica (2023)
- Identification of the key morphological sweetpotato weevil resistance predictors in Ugandan sweetpotato genotypes using correlation and path‐coefficient analysis , Crop Science (2023)