S5: Episode 3: Krishna Bhattarai - Producing the Future of Crops

Krishna Bhattarai is an Assistant Professor of Controlled Environment Plant Breeding at Texas A&M AgriLife Research and the Department of Horticultural Sciences, Texas A&M University, based in Dallas, Texas. He leads the Breeding for Controlled Environments program, focused on developing CEA-optimized cultivars through genetic discovery, high-throughput phenotyping, and genome-informed breeding to improve productivity, resilience, and profitability in controlled environment agriculture systems. His program integrates germplasm development, trait dissection, and cultivar improvement across multiple horticultural crops, with active collaboration with industry and public partners. Prior to joining Texas A&M AgriLife, he held roles as Junior Breeder in processing tomato at Enza Zaden, Postdoctoral Researcher in strawberry breeding at UC Davis, and Postdoctoral Associate and Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Florida, where he also completed his Ph.D. in Environmental Horticulture. He earned an M.S. in Horticultural Science from North Carolina State University and a B.Sc. in Agriculture from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. His research is supported by competitive extramural funding, teaching activities, 18 peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 book chapters, 1 editorial, and numerous scientific abstracts and presentations. He also contributes to graduate training, professional service, and industry engagement to advance sustainable horticultural production systems globally and internationally.