For decades, a leading “grand challenge” in agriculture has been how to feed the world without negatively impacting our ecosystems. This year, the University of Minnesota’s Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics (APG) is proud to recognize an alum who isn't just dreaming of that future—he is breeding it into existence.
Dr. Lee DeHaan (M.S. ’00, Ph.D. ’01) is one of this year's recipients of the University of Minnesota Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award.
As the Lead Scientist at The Land Institute (TLI), Dr. DeHaan has been a driving force behind a grain revolution, most notably through his work with Kernza® intermediate wheatgrass, the world’s first commercialized perennial grain.
The letter of nomination, submitted by Forever Green Co-Directors, Nick Jordan and Mitch Hunter, cites this work among the many reasons for this recognition:
"We write to nominate Lee DeHaan (Lee DeHaan (M.S. ’00, Ph.D. ‘01) for the 2026 Agronomy and Plant Genetics Department Distinguished Alumni Award. Dr. DeHaan is a prominent member of the scientific staff of The Land Institute (TLI), an independent research institution focused on development of perennial grain crops. At TLI, he is Lead Scientist for TLI’s work on the development of the world’s first perennial grain crop for the temperate zone, Kernza® Intermediate Wheatgrass (Kernza). Below, we describe Dr. DeHaan’s professional contributions, leadership, and professional awards and other forms of recognition.
Professional contributions. Dr. DeHaan is providing scientific and practical leadership at an extremely important scientific frontier: development of perennial crops that can provide grain—the foundation of the human food system—while also providing the many agronomic and ecological benefits of perennial crops. Grain production requires about 70% of the world’s cropland, ~12% of terrestrial land area. Scaling perennial grain crops across that area would powerfully address what many view as agriculture’s greatest challenge: sustaining production of food and biomaterials while protecting and actively regenerating the heavily damaged resources—soil, water, wildlife, and climate—upon which farming depends. To realize this profoundly important potential, the yield of perennial grains must be increased. At present, perennial grain crops yield roughly 25% to 40% of comparable annual crop. Perennial rice offers a very promising proof of concept, as elite perennial rice germplasm matches the yield of elite annual varieties.
Dr. DeHaan’s research program has been very productive and fruitful, including almost 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, many meeting and conference presentations, and publications for non-scientific audiences. Broadly, his research addresses development of perennial crops. His earlier work reports and builds on his graduate research on genetics, breeding and production of perennial legumes, including Kura clover and Illinois bundleflower. His early work also includes participation in several highly-influential publications that made the case for the value and feasibility of development of perennial grain crops, e.g., his 2005 first-authored article Perennial grain crops: A synthesis of ecology and plant breeding. His later work addresses many aspects of perennial grains and their development, including genetics and breeding, agronomy, agroecology, end uses, and ecosystem services. There is a strong focus on genetics and breeding of Kernza, addressing the imperative to improve the yield of this crop, while also addressing other key breeding goals such as increased seed size and end-use traits. He has applied a wide range of breeding methods, including genomic selection, whole-genome prediction models, sequence-based paternity analysis, nested association mapping, and analysis of genetic architecture. Clearly, he is among the world’s most experienced and influential breeders of perennial grain crops, and is thereby providing highly consequential scientific leadership.
He has also built on his work on Kernza to advance understanding of perennial grain development more generally, e.g., by well-cited publications such as his 2016 DeHaan et al. A pipeline strategy for grain crop domestication and 2020’s DeHaan et al. Roadmap for accelerated domestication of an emerging perennial grain crop. As their titles imply, this work addresses the important challenges of efficiency and tempo in development of perennial grain crops, particularly in the context of de novo domestication. His work further builds understanding of the latter challenge, in a set of publications that address novel crop development in general. These works address such crop development holistically, e.g., New food crop domestication in the age of gene editing: genetic, agronomic and cultural change remain co-evolutionarily entangled from 2020, 2024’s What is the prospect of a perennial grain revolution of agriculture? and the 2025 publication DeHaan et al. From concept to crop: Kernza perennial grain is a work in progress. This body of work also addresses genetics and breeding aspects of novel crop development, e.g., 2022’s Re-imagining crop domestication in the era of high throughput phenomics. This work on the crucial challenges of novel-crop and perennial-grain development further demonstrates the major intellectual and action leadership that Dr. DeHaan has provided in this very important scientific and practical frontier in agriculture and agricultural science.
Leadership in professional or civic organizations. Dr. DeHaan has contributed a wide variety of professional leadership, across his career. In ASA, he was a founding member of the "Perennial Grain Development Community". Prior to the formation of this group, he was active in organizing around perennial grain in the Tri-Societies, most importantly organizing a symposium at an annual meeting featuring seminal thought leaders in perennial and regenerative agriculture including both science and non-science perspectives from Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and others. He also helped found Green Lands Blue Waters, a long-running and ongoing perennial and regenerative agriculture development initiative associated with the University of Minnesota, and served for several years on its steering committee.
Finally, he led and later co-led the first four annual meetings of an annual conference on kernza, now known as KernzaCon, which provides a forum for attendees to interact with others interested in kernza, learn and share knowledge, and build the collaborative network that is engaged in developing Kernza. He was the lead organizer of the first conference held in Kansas, and two later conferences held in Kansas, as well as an online conference during the Covid pandemic, and played leadership roles in four other editions of KernzaCon.
He also has played a variety of civic leadership roles in the large Christian congregation of which he and his family are members, include a term as vice chair, and several terms as secretary, also chairing several committees, and supporting a range of other programs of the church, including supporting local food bank, community fix-ups, and music ministry to state penitentiaries. He is also an active musician in the church, singing and playing electric guitar and trumpet, and serving as an AV technician.
Professional recognition. Dr. DeHaan has been broadly recognized as an authority in his field. He was awarded recognition as a 2017 American Food Hero by Eating Well magazine, and served as Endowed Chair in Agriculture Systems at the University of Minnesota, 2010-2011, 2015-2016. The Endowed Chair is filled in a highly-competitive process, and his selection for two separate terms is a notable achievement. He was also recognized during his graduate studies with competitive fellowship support and other awards, including the G.O. Mott Scholarship, Crop Science Society of America in 2001, the H.K. Hayes Outstanding Graduate Student Award, Univ. of Minnesota, St. Paul, also in 2001, and a Natural Systems Agriculture Fellowship from The Land Institute, 1999-2001.
In summary, we see abundant and broad evidence of Dr. DeHaan’s professional contributions, professional and civic leadership, and professional recognition. In particular, he is providing globally-significant intellectual and action leadership in the development of perennial agriculture, encompassing key aspects of development of perennial grains and the domestication of novel perennial crops. These crops can be the basis of an agriculture that meets human needs for food and biomaterials, while also being considerably more climate-resilient and regenerative than our current agriculture. Because of its potential to meet these grand and crucial challenges, development of perennial grains and other forms of perennial agriculture appears to be among the most significant and transformative domains of current agricultural science. For all these reasons, we are delighted to nominate Dr. DeHaan as a very well-qualified candidate for the 2026 Agronomy and Plant Genetics Department Distinguished Alumni Award."
The Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics will present this year's awards at a ceremony on Thursday, May 28. Time and location to be announced.