Plant Breeding CC

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Plant Breeding CC

• Todd C. Wehner
• Department of Horticultural Science
• North Carolina State University
• Raleigh, NC 27695-7609
• Todd_Wehner_at_ncsu.edu
• http//cucurbitbreeding.ncsu.edu/

NC STATE UNIVERSITY
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Who are we?

• Plant Breeding CC
• Multi-state coordinating committee SCC-080
• Based in southern region experiment stations
• but membership is open to all
• Formed in 2006
• First workshop held February 2007

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Who are we?

• Plant Breeding CC
• Groups represented
• Land-grant universities
• USDA-ARS
• Seed industry
• Non-government organizations, including organics
• Crops represented
• Fruits, vegetables
• Grains, legumes
• Ornamentals, flowers, turfgrasses
• Forage, fiber crops, forest trees

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Who are we?

• Plant Breeding CC
• Officers
• Stephen Baenziger, chair
• Philipp Simon, vice-chair
• Todd Wehner, secretary
• Liaisons
• Ronnie Coffman, Internat. Plant Breeding Centers
• Bill Tracy, Non-Gov. Organization Plant Breeders
• Steve McKeand, Forestry Plant Breeders
• Herb Ohm, Crop Science Society Amer.
• Linda Wessel-Beaver, Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci.
• Greg Tolla, Nat. Council Commercial Plant Breeders

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Who are we?

• Plant Breeding CC
• Representatives
• Mark Hussey, Administrative advisor
• Ann Marie Thro, USDA-CSREES representative
• Kay Simmons, USDA-ARS representative
• Randy Johnson, US Forest Service representative
• Subcommittees (each with chair and secretary)
• Excellence in science and technology
• Globally competitive agricultural system
• Competitiveness, sustainability, and quality of
  life in rural America
• A safe and secure food and fiber system
• A healthy, well-nourished population
• Harmony between agriculture and the environment
• Education and training of plant breeders

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Why do we exist?

• Plant Breeding CC
• Basic principles
• Agriculture - the foundation of civilization
• Plant breeding - the foundation of agriculture
• Highlights of plant breeding
• Plant domestication
• Green revolution
• Heterosis
• Disease resistance
• Nutritionally-enhanced foods

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Why do we exist?

• Plant Breeding CC
• Private plant breeders
• Signficant increase in 20th century
• due to changes in our intellectual property laws
• Took over some crop improvement duties
• Public plant breeders
• Research new traits, methods
• Teaching future plant breeders
• Breeding develop new cultivars
• especially wheat, peanut, sweetpotato, grape

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Why do we exist?

• Plant Breeding CC
• The Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee will be
  a forum for leadership regarding issues, problems
  and opportunities of long-term strategic
  importance to the contribution of plant breeding
  to national goals.
• http//globalplantbreeding.ncsu.edu/

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Why do we exist?

• Plant Breeding CC
• Plant breeding is many activities
• Collect, evaluate germplasm (public)
• Research new breeding methods (public)
• Train graduate students (public)
• Develop improved germplasm (public, private)
• Release new cultivars (public, private)

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Public plant breeding survey

• Conclusions
• Few of 51 land grant universities still have
  plant breeding programs
• One strong plant breeding university per region
  of the U.S.
• 53 of plant breeding graduates are from 7 land
  grant universities
• Public plant breeders remaining are poorly funded
• Public plant breeders retiring may not be replaced

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Number of plant breeders in the public and private sectors in the U.S. in 1994 and 2001. Number of plant breeders in the public and private sectors in the U.S. in 1994 and 2001. Number of plant breeders in the public and private sectors in the U.S. in 1994 and 2001. Number of plant breeders in the public and private sectors in the U.S. in 1994 and 2001. Number of plant breeders in the public and private sectors in the U.S. in 1994 and 2001. Number of plant breeders in the public and private sectors in the U.S. in 1994 and 2001. Number of plant breeders in the public and private sectors in the U.S. in 1994 and 2001. Number of plant breeders in the public and private sectors in the U.S. in 1994 and 2001. Number of plant breeders in the public and private sectors in the U.S. in 1994 and 2001.
Crops SAES SAES USDA-ARS USDA-ARS Private sector Private sector Total Total
Crops 1994 2001 1994 2001 1994 2001 1994 2001
Grain 246 200 54 89 903 1026 1203 1315
Fiber 20 24 13 11 103 123 136 157
Forage 38 27 33 13 51 65 122 105
Sugar 4 4 15 0 25 4 44 8
Vegetables 99 55 22 25 268 123 389 203
Ornamentals 18 39 5 0 64 83 87 122
Fruit Nut 60 41 29 23 32 12 121 76
Lawn Turf 15 16 0 0 41 9 56 24
Others 28 18 6 0 10 100 44 118
Total 528 424 177 161 1497 1545 2202 2130
From Frey (1996), Traxler et al. (2005), Morris
et al. (2006)
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Plant Breeding Students Trained in the U.S.,
1995-2000
Total Domestic
International Land Grant University degrees Ph.D.
M.S. Ph.D M.S.
All universities 743 151 202 243 147 Univ.
Wisconsin-Madison 72 22 18 16 16 North Carolina
State Univ. 64 7 21 26 10 Univ.
Nebraska-Lincoln 61 5 10 27 19 Cornell
Univ. 54 18 5 27 4 Univ. Minnesota 48 16 11 13 8 I
owa State Univ. 44 13 13 12 6 Texas AM
Univ. 41 9 10 18 4 Michigan State
Univ. 36 10 12 8 6 North Dakota State
Univ. 33 3 13 11 6 Oregon State
Univ. 28 4 5 16 3 Wehner and Guner, 2002
(plantbreeding.ncsu.edu)
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Plant Breeding Students Trained in U.S.,
1995-2000 (per year)
Total Domestic
International Land Grant University degrees Ph.D.
M.S. Ph.D M.S.
All universities 124 25 34 40 24 Univ.
Wisconsin-Madison 12 4 3 3 3 North Carolina State
Univ. 11 1 4 4 2 Univ. Nebraska-Lincoln 10 1 2 5 3
Cornell Univ. 9 3 1 5 1 Univ. Minnesota 8 3 2 2 1
Iowa State Univ. 7 2 2 2 1 Texas AM
Univ. 7 1 2 3 1 Michigan State Univ. 6 2 2 1 1 Nor
th Dakota State Univ. 5 1 2 2 1 Oregon State
Univ. 5 1 1 3 1 Wehner and Guner, 2002
(plantbreeding.ncsu.edu)
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Problem

• Plant Breeding CC
• Public breeders needed
• Private breeders do not do research
• Private breeders do not educate students
• U.S. needs 200 PB students/year
• U.S. trains 120 PB students/year
• Private breeders do not work on all crops
• Thanksgiving dinner will not exist!
• Rolls, sweetpotato, wine

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What are we doing?

• Plant Breeding CC
• Promoting communication among breeders
• Different sectors federal, state, private,
  non-profit
• Different crops agronomy, horticulture, forestry
• Assembling information on plant breeding
• Developing support for plant breeding
• Identifying research, education priorities

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What are we doing?

• Plant Breeding CC
• Organizing plant breeders in the U.S.
• Bringing awareness of problem to the public
• Federal support needed
• national-needs fellowships in plant breeding
• competitive grants for plant breeding
• more years per grant
• support for centers of excellence in breeding
• Hatch funds for experiment station support

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Plant Breeding CC

• More information
• See web page at
• globalplantbreeding.ncsu.edu
• Or, find in Google by entering
• plant breeding coordinating committee
• Or, contact one of the officers

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Plant Breeding CC

• Thank you
• Questions?