WHAT IS PLANT BREEDING ?

Plant Breeding is the genetic improvement of crop plants for human benefit through the study and application of multiple scientific disciplines. Plant breeding is also described as the collection, creation/manipulation, and evaluation of genetic variation to make heritable changes in plants that are advantageous to mankind.

What is the importance of Plant Breeding?

·         It addresses world food security issues directly or indirectly by:

·         Increasing the efficiency/productivity of crops and production system.

·         Improving the bioavailability of key nutrients or reducing antinutritive compounds.

·         Developing crops for specific production systems.

·         Making forages more digestible and creating efficient biorenewable fuels.

Why Study Plant Breeding?

·         The world is facing unprecedented Grand Challenges that include:

·         The world population is growing significantly and is predicted to be >9 billion by 2050.

·         There are no appreciable changes in availability of crop land globally.

·         Water tables are falling.

·         Climate change is increasing risks associated with crop production.

·         Crop yields must increase 2-fold by 2050 to meet the projected global demand for food and feed.

·         Plant Breeders play a central role in addressing these grand challenges by enhancing the quantity and quality of food, feed, fiber and biofuels globally, even under these difficult scenarios.

Plant Breeder:

•       Breeder is a vital team player, who is always be aware, of the needs and supports needed by other members, to achieve the overall goal.

•       He/she has an vital role in seed production, seed quality, seed marketing as well as in Management, in addition to his core role in development of newer hybrids & varieties.

•       Knowledge and skills in additional roles is essential to build the career as a Plant Breeder in the seed industry.

Where can I work as a Plant Breeder?

•       Both private and public sector jobs are available for plant breeders to apply their knowledge for the ultimate goal of developing cultivars suited to human needs.

•       Approximately 65-75% of breeders work in the private sector and 25-35% are employed in the public sector.

•        Several studies have been conducted to predict the future demand of plant breeders in the U.S. and internationally, and they agreed in the strong demand for plant breeding graduates.

 

Breeders' Role in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) for the Hybrids/Parental Lines

·         Intellectual property protection is crucial & a key enabler for investment in plant  breeding and the development of new hybrids/varieties of plants.

·         As the crop varieties developed by the company are an asset of the company, it is obvious to protect the assets through a proper and pragmatic IPR.

·         The violators of rights can be penalised, including civil judicial proceedings for monetary damages, an injunction to prevent the continued unauthorized use of the product and criminal proceedings by the government.

·         The breeder should be the person to complete the PVP certificate application

·         It is important to maintain good breeding records, which are invaluable in case of an infringement challenge.

·         As data compilation, for PVP filing purposes, need to be well thought  out process, not only because of need for robust data but also implications.

Breeders' Role in Market Development

·         It is always the ambition and aim of the breeder to develop a block buster or a trend setter product.

·         However, it is not possible, always, to develop such a product.

•       Breeders need to work very closely, with product testing team to capture the extent of superiority and the suitable environment adaptation.

·         Generation of USP profiles of products is one of the roles of the breeder

Breeders role in Seed Quality Assurance

•        Ensuring required seed quality features-viability, germination and vigour of     hybrid seed of the new hybrid.

•       Quality testing are hybrid specific and protocol dependent, regular communications between QC team and the Breeder is essential to refine and validate the protocols.

•       Development and validation of lab based methodologies, is a responsibility of the Breeder in collaboration with the QC team

 

Breeders' Role in New product seed production

•       Commercialization of a hybrids, depends also on its producibility both ease of production and quantity. Production Cost is important

•       To ensure improved or at par compared to the existing hybrid.

•       If there are issues, come out with corrective measures, like swapping of parents, tweaking with nicking gaps etc to ensure economy of production

•       Crop and seed production season are different

•       Fruit yield and seed yield are different

Plant Breeder and the Quality Seed Production..

•       The Breeder to jointly monitor, with the production team and certify the genetic purity.

•       Being aware of the influence of Genotype x Environment (GxE) interaction effect on the behaviour of the parental lines, should educate to differentiate between variation due to environment and the off types appearing in the field for rogueing as well as GOT purposes.

•       While monitor the production fields during flowering stage, to evaluate, nicking of parents and other field quality features, need to recommend remedial measures, if required

Plant Breeder and the Quality Seed

•       Supply of genetically pure seeds drop for bids and varieties, with high germination and vigour on a recurring basis season after season at their doorstep of millions of farmers all over the country, is one of the key challenges and functions of seed companies and enterprises

•        Seed delivery, of a variety developed by the plant breeder, takes place over a number of sequentially-dependent classes of seed: nucleus seed, breeder seed, foundation seed and commercial/certified seed.

•       Since a considerable number of hybrid genotypes and parental lines are handled, at any given time, the most precise scientific technologies and productión practices are to be applied effectively.

•       Some of the seed companies have set higher standards, than "Indian Minimum Seed Certification standards" to establish brand equity and there by gain farmers' preference.

•       The role of the plant breeder here is like a base athlete of relay team, wherein he/she not only provide the initial momentum for the race but also ensures that the next athlete will carry on the momentum by hand holding in the exchange zone.

Breeders additional role in supporting allied functions in seed business

*    Parent seed production

•       Hybrid seed

•       New product development

•       Seed quality assurance

 

    Sales and marketing

•       Product registration

•       Consumer complaint redressal

•       Market development

•       Export of seed

•       Third party hybrid evaluation

•       Competition scanning.

 

    Management

•       Germplasm acquisition and use

•       Intellectual property for hybrid parental lines

 

  Breeder is a vital team player who is always aware of the needs supports other members to achieve the overall goals.

Knowledge and skills on additional role is essential to be sucessful plant breeder.

 

WORKING TOGETHER WORKS BETTER

•       Universities should come forward to address the technical and technological problems of breeding and seed production research faced by seed industry and provide continuing education and training support to their professionals.

•       Wasteful duplication of work or under-utilization of resources can be minimized through effective collaboration between the two sectors.

•        India will soon be able to connect plant breeding capacity with a very dynamic market. The role of the public sector will be important to maintain critical capacities and systemic linkages to the needs of an expanding private sector.

•       Focus of plant breeding should be the development of new varieties and e same time, conservation of genetic resources for the posterity. PPP can be very effective in fund-raising, resource utilization, and for maintenance of germplasm collections, their evaluation and conservation.

•        PPP can address pressing challenges through specific strategies to develop varieties adapted to climatic changes and lower inputs E.g., 1.'Biofortified Sorghum' project Africa -more nutritious and easily digestible sorghum with high amino acids, vitamins, iron, and zinc. 2.Brazil's EMBRAPA Herbicide-tolerant soybean

•       Incubation centers in universities should have a guide from the industrial background to help the candidates to understand the real-life challenges and connect with the commercial world to bring the industry perspective to the problem. Mutual trust is a must, and it should be reinforced with appropriate MOUS (memorandum of understanding) and agreements. Information sharing can discretionary

•       Plant breeders of both the sectors have a long history of working together. These collaborations need to be more effective and realistic on multiple fronts

The public and private sectors can complement each other in the following different ways:

(i) To satisfy the present and future demands for the well-experienced plant breeder both the sectors, public sector institutions must update their curricula to make more relevant, stimulating, This will attract smart students who can be groom young professionals for productive careers in diverse settings. Here, Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) can work effectively to provide a reliable and sustainable supp human resource.

 (ii) Private sector is usually the front runner in the adoption and utilization of advanced  technologies. A collaboration with the private sector may provide better funding  to the public sector for innovations in plant breeding technologies aligned to the of the private seed industry.

Role of Industry in Training Plant Breeders

•       With the current explosion in scientific knowledge and technology, seed companies find that their breeders are not appropriately aware of the recent developments in knowledge and new techniques.

•       To update the breeding knowledge of their R&D teams. Companies EITHER

•       Retire the older, less productive breeders and hire new graduates with up-to- date skills and knowledge OR

•       Send their breeders back to school on sabbatical or through collaborative research and study with university researchers.

•       The first approach is the norm with some companies, while other companies prefer to retain their productive senior breeders and encourage them to perform better and train the younger breeders.

•       The industry essentially trains its plant breeders in company research procedures and in use of proprietary skills and knowledge.

•       Often, breeders come equipped with breeding knowledge about a particular crop

•       but are assigned to a different crop;

•        The company trains such breeders in the biology, genetics, and the special

•       selection needs for that crop by sending them for training to universities and research institutes

•       For instance, companies focusing on breeding of vegetable crops send their breeders to World Vegetable Center, Taiwan or to certain US universities for practical training and hands on experience.

•       Skills and knowledge can become outdated, often because of advancing research in the universities and other institutions.