Plant Breeding 101: How to Win In the Commercial Seed Business

By David Benson

Dr. David Benson is an experienced corn breeder with 51 patents for the development of maize inbreds and hybrids and a demonstrated record of success in creating commercial maize products.

This book is a compilation of blog posts written by Dr. David L. Benson PhD. Dr. Benson has created an incredible following of readers from all over the world across many professions. This book will help you become succcessful in the commercial seed business. It does not matter if you are a new graduate entering into the agricultural industry for the first time or an experienced plant breeder; this book will help you succeed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781329941335

David Benson

David Benson is a Senior Lecturer based in the Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI) at the University of Exeter, Penryn, Cornwall. His research encompasses a range of issue areas at the interface between political and environmental sciences, most notably EU environmental and energy policy, comparative environmental governance and public participation in environmental decision-making

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Plant Breeding 101: How to Win In the Commercial Seed Business

Plant breeding 101: How to win in the commercial seed business

by

Dr. David L. Benson PhD

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreward3

Biography4

Chapter 1: Basic Rules for Plant breeders5

Chapter 2: The Seven Deadly Sins of Plant Breeding28

Chapter 4: Historical united states grain yields64

Chapter 4: exploring new business opportunites in africa68

Chapter 3: The Future of agriculture80

Foreword

When I started writing this blog in early 2015 I must admit that I had no idea that what I had to say would resonate with so many from all around the world.  As many of you may have noticed from my blogs writing is not necessarily my strong suit nor is it something that I have ever thought about doing for a career.  That being said, I have enjoyed the feedback that I have received from not only plant breeders in agriculture, but a wide range of people in many, many fields. I have grown my network on LinkedIn exponentially over the last year and have been privileged to get to meet several of these connections either in person or via Skype or other online medium. 

I am not sure where my writing will take me in 2016; however, it is something that I tend to do on a fairly consistent basis.  I enjoy learning and consider myself to be a life-long learner; there is no such thing as being too knowledgeable. As I continue to learn from my own experiences as a plant breeder (who is now venturing into unknown territory – Africa) I will continue to share what I have learned as well as engage my readers in discussions centered around the issues surrounding the agriculture industry. I hope that the information I continue to post will challenge you intellectually and help you become better at your job, regardless of your field.

Introduction

Dr. David Benson is an experienced corn breeder with 51 patents for the development of maize inbreds and hybrids and a demonstrated record of success in creating commercial maize products. Dr. Benson has a contagious passion for corn breeding and is a motivated self-starter who leads by example, promotes honesty, holds himself to the highest of ethical standards, has unquestioned integrity, and is committed to the pursuit of excellence. Dr. Benson is a life long learner and is constantly striving to challenge himself by stepping out of his comfort zone and tackling projects in foreign nations as well as unfamiliar crops.  Dr. Benson has partnered with over 150 national and international public and private clients including: universities, genetic suppliers, seed companies and international research companies to increase seed stocks, create improved genetics and sell commercial seed products.

Dr. Benson is currently the CEO and founder of Cornhusker Hybrids, LLC. His company develops and markets corn genetics worldwide but also functions as a global consulting business for: plant breeding, seed production, product development and robotic integration in all crops in all countries. Dr. Benson’s breeding and product development efforts are recognized on a global level. He is currently working on projects in Africa and Canada. Cornhusker Hybrids is the only company in the world developing African x U.S.A. maize products

Chapter One: Basic Rules for Plant Breeders

Rule Number One: Choice of Germplasm

This is the most important decision a plant breeder will ever make. Honestly, no other decision is even close in importance as to the choice of which germplasm to utilize in your plant breeding program. The quality of your germplasm will absolutely determine the outcome of any plant breeding program. It makes no difference which breeding method that you use, where and how you test and evaluate products, what your product advancement scheme is, or what technology and/or traits that you can integrate if you cannot use as your base the best germplasm available to you. Period. You just cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear so to speak. I might further add that you must select the best germplasm for your crop, and for the traits of economic importance for that crop in your area of adaptation or primary sales area.

Rule Number Two: Breed First, Foremost, and Always for Yield.

Your breeding program MUST be top heavy on yield. In the United States, corn yield is measured in bushels/acre @15.5% grain moisture. My first selection criteria are always the greatest number of bushels per acre and then secondary in my selection model are all the other agronomic traits. There are some agronomic traits that are more important than others and every breeding programs target area of adaptation is different. To maximize the productivity of your breeding program you must develop cultivars that are well balanced or top heavy for yield (offense) and then balanced with acceptable agronomics (defense). If your breeding program prioritizes defensive traits such as disease tolerance or insect tolerance these defensive traits can be antagonistic to the maximum yield production of your cultivar.

Rule Number Three:  Your Program Must Be Data Driven

Data, Data, Data. To maximize the rate of genetic gain in a breeding program, effective cultivar selection must be Data Driven. This data for making crucial selection decisions must be of the highest quality obtainable. The successful plant breeder is one who precisely estimates the true genetic effects of the cultivars under selection. In order for the plant breeder to select the highest performing cultivars in any given experiment, every one in the research organization must do all they can to greatly reduce the non - genetic effects in field, lab, or greenhouse experiments. Regardless of whether your data is collected in the marker lab, greenhouse, or field these genotypes and phenotypes are never measured perfectly; there is always some degree of error associated with every single measurement. Simply put, the plant breeder which data drives his program with the highest quality data will be the program that achieves the Greatest Rate of Genetic Gain.

I am a corn breeder and I make a lot of decisions on a very simple statistical print -out the Entry Means Report. If every possible source of non-genetic variance has been accounted for and reduced to the best of our organizations ability, I have a simple job. I select the winners at the top of the page sorted by my important traits. If we are sloppy or overconfident, or complacent, or just plain collect bad data and then use it, and we over estimate or under estimate the true genetic effects, the breeder selects the wrong cultivars and the breeding program will not, and can not be successful. Sadly, this happens all to often in many breeding programs throughout the world.

Plant Breeding Rule Number Four: Discard! Discard! Discard!

You have to discard and you have to be good at it. My mentor at Iowa State Dr. Arnel Hallauer told me when I took my first commercial breeding job that I had to be ruthless at discarding or my breeding program would run aground in mediocrity. This means I would be wasting my employer’s precious breeding resources on inbreds or hybrids which had little chance to win. I personally took this to mean that David if you do not eliminate the poor performing cultivars from your program you will not be successful and you will soon become unemployed.

The successful plant breeder must discard each and every cultivar except the very select few cultivars that meet or exceed his breeding targets.

Reviews for Plant Breeding 101

[Rasidin Azwar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Inspiring, straight forward, focus to see gain and failure, simplification, good exposure,