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Agriculture:
the foundation
of civilization
Plant breeding:
the foundation
of agriculture
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Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee
Minutes of Meetings and Conference Calls - 2008
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These are the minutes of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee.
- Minutes of telephone conference #14 on April 24, 2008
- Members present: Steve Baenziger, Randy Johnson, Herb Ohm, Linda Pollak, Phil Simon, David Stelly, Bill Tracy, Todd Wehner, Linda Wessel-Beaver, Keith Woeste
- Plans for annual workshop
- Moderator: Bill Beavis, Iowa State
- 120 registered as of April 18; few graduate students are currently registered
- Hotel rooms for the meeting are OK; there will be 7 groups (2 in the main room) for the discussion sessions
- Speakers will not need to register, but will be on a list for Denise Pierce
- For the speakers, we will cover, registration, hotel, transportation, per diem, honorarium (perhaps $300)
- For the panelists, we will cover, registration, hotel, transportation, per diem
- Keith Woeste is coordinating speakers
- Projectors and screens will be provided; we will need to bring portable computers
- Volunteers for computers: Randy Johnson, Herb Ohm, Phil Simon, Steve Baenziger, Linda Pollak, Linda Wessel-Beaver
- Tours will be offered
after the workshop
- (attendees will assemble in a common location and visit the facilities)
- On Wednesday afternoon, June 18th, participants are invited to visit the North Central Plant Introduction Station at Ames. Contact Kathy
Reitsma to reserve a space.
- Graduate students and their advisors are invited to visit Pioneer Hi-Bred at Johnston. Contact Leslie Lorenc to reserve a space. Partipants must make their own transportation arrangements.
- We will send another notice about the meeting this week: June 16-18, 2008, Des Moines, Iowa: 2nd National Plant Breeding Workshop, sponsored by SCC-080, the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee. The Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee serves as a forum regarding issues and opportunities of national and global importance to the public and private sectors of the U.S. national plant breeding effort. The workshop will focus on building partnerships between society and the global community of plant breeders. The workshop will include a visit to Monsanto’s facilities at Huxley, Iowa, as well as invited speakers and discussion sessions (Registration: $200 professionals; $100 graduate students).
- Funds were approved for the $5,000 for meeting expenses, including travel for speakers
- Presenters
- Speaker, Science in the public arena: Monsanto Scientist
- Invited speaker, Food and nutrition: Henry Thompson, Univ. Colorado
- Invited speaker, Environment and plant breeding: Jerry DeWitt, Leopold Center
- Speakers, Early career discussion: Marcelo Carena?, Donn Cummings?, Greg Tolla
- Discussion panel: Ann Marie Thro, Jeff Pedersen, Molly Jahn, Charlie Stuber, Chuck Hassebrook, Greg Tolla, Stephen Smith, others?
- White papers
- Several papers are in progress, with other subcommittees a possibility:
- nearly complete: Healthy, Well-nourished Population
- nearly complete: Education and Training of Plant Breeders
- in progress: Excellence in Science and Technology
- starting: Harmony Between Agriculture and the Environment
- starting: Competitiveness, Sustainability and Quality of Life in Rural America
- uncertain: A Globally Competitive Agricultural System
- uncertain: Safe and Secure Food and Fiber System
- National Needs Fellowships
- Current grants are: Montana State University plus 6 other universities for wheat breeding (from USDA-CSREES)
- Other training grants: few university plant breeding programs are left, so little capacity-building can be used
- Next conference call
- Minutes of telephone conference #13 on March 27, 2008
- Members present: Steve Baenziger, Randy Johnson, Herb Ohm, Linda Pollak, Phil Simon, Kay Simmons, Tom Stalker, David Stelly, Ann Marie Thro, Bill Tracy, Todd Wehner, Linda Wessel-Beaver, Keith Woeste
- Plans for annual workshop
- We will confirm that advertising has gone out for the meeting: send advertisement to ASHS (Linda Wessel-Beaver), CSSA (Herb Ohm), Plant Breeding News (Linda Wessel-Beaver), ASTA (Greg Tolla), NCCPB (Greg Tolla), experiment station directors (Ann Marie Thro), ARS Genetics Groups (Kay Simmons), GrainGenes (Steve Baenziger)
- Tours will be offered at the 2nd National Plant Breeding Workshop
- Attendees will assemble in a common location and visit the facilities
- Plant Introduction Station tour, Ames, IA (Kathy Reitsma)
- Pioneer Hy-Bred tour, Johnston, IA
- Monsanto tour, Huxley Breeding Center, IA
- others?
- Objective of meeting: The plant breeding coordinating committee serves as a forum regarding issues and opportunities of national and global importance to the public and private sectors of the U.S. national plant breeding effort. This year's workshop will focus building partnerships between society and the global community of plant breeders. The workshop will include invited speakers, discussion sessions, and focus groups.
- Advertisement for workshop: June 16-18, 2008, Des Moines, Iowa: 2nd National Plant Breeding Workshop, sponsored by SCC-080, the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee. The Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee serves as a forum regarding issues and opportunities of national and global importance to the public and private sectors of the U.S. national plant breeding effort. The workshop will focus on building partnerships between society and the global community of plant breeders. The workshop will include a visit to Monsanto’s facilities at Huxley, Iowa, as well as invited speakers and discussion sessions (Registration: $200 professionals; $100 graduate students).
- Funds were approved for the $5,000 for meeting expenses, including travel for speakers
- Graduate students get a discount, but not postdocs
- Graduate students could be involved as notetakers for the breakout sessions
- White papers
- Several papers are in progress, with other subcommittees a possibility:
- in progress: Healthy, Well-nourished Population
- in progress: Harmony Between Agriculture and the Environment
- in progress: Education and Training of Plant Breeders
- none: Excellence in Science and Technology
- none: A Globally Competitive Agricultural System
- none: Competitiveness, Sustainability and Quality of Life in Rural America
- none: Safe and Secure Food and Fiber System
- Next conference call
- April 17 and 24, 1 pm EST
- Minutes of telephone conference #12 on February 28, 2008
- Members present: Steve Baenziger, Herb Ohm, Linda Pollak, Phil Simon, Kay Simmons, Ann Marie Thro, Greg Tolla, Todd Wehner, Linda Wessel-Beaver
- Plans for annual workshop
- Advertising for meeting: send advertisement to ASHS (Linda Wessel-Beaver), CSSA (Herb Ohm), Plant Breeding News (Linda Wessel-Beaver), ASTA (Greg Tolla), NCCPB (Greg Tolla), experiment station directors (Ann Marie Thro), ARS Genetics Groups (Kay Simmons), GrainGenes (Steve Baenziger)
- 2nd National Plant Breeding Workshop (Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee, SCC-080)
- Objective of meeting: The plant breeding coordinating committee serves as a forum regarding issues and opportunities of national and global importance to the public and private sectors of the U.S. national plant breeding effort. This year's workshop will focus building partnerships between society and the global community of plant breeders. The workshop will include invited speakers, discussion sessions, and focus groups.
- Advertisement for workshop: June 16-18, 2008, Des Moines, Iowa: 2nd National Plant Breeding Workshop, sponsored by SCC-080, the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee. The Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee serves as a forum regarding issues and opportunities of national and global importance to the public and private sectors of the U.S. national plant breeding effort. The workshop will focus on building partnerships between society and the global community of plant breeders. The workshop will include a visit to Monsanto’s facilities at Huxley, Iowa, as well as invited speakers and discussion sessions (Registration: $200 professionals; $100 graduate students).
- Funds were approved for the $5,000 for meeting expenses, including travel for speakers
- ARS funds will be requested by Kay Simmons, perhaps to fund the metrics panel
- Speakers: will be invited by speaker subcommittee
- Linda Pollak and Phil Simon will invite the speaker for the Food and nutrition area
- Ann Marie Thro will invite the speaker for the area of Environment and plant breeding area
- Metrics panel will be developed from the audience; additional information on impact and metrics could be provided by Jeff Pedersen
- NSF might contribute a speaker: Jane Silverthorn or Ed Kaleikou
- a speaker will be invited from NCCPB (Greg Tolla)
- Molly Jahn could be invited from the experiment station
- Chuck Hassebrook (Center for Rural Affairs) could be invited to represent sustainable agriculture groups; Leopold Center
- Speaker duties: 3 minute overview; 15 minute small group discussion; 45 minute general discussion (send a letter before the meeting with some specific questions for each speaker)
- Plant breeding will become more important, and NSF may want to get involved (in addition to USDA-ARS)
- Next conference call
- Minutes of telephone conference #11 on February 25, 2008 (white paper subcommittee)
- Members present: Stephen Baenziger, Phil Simon, Keith Woeste, Rob Bertram, Travis Frey, Linda Pollak, and Tom Stalker
- The following actions were taken at the meeting:
- We reviewed the nutrition outline and education white paper; we were grateful that we had examples from which to learn. Some thoughts:
- The education white paper was written fairly generally due to its being cross cutting for all of our subcommittee areas. The nutrition outline was very specific and we think most of the other subcommittees will most likely be more specific than the education white paper.
- We expect there will be some redundancy among the white papers, especially as it relates to education (again a cross cutting issue), but that redundancy is probably good as not every reader will read more than one subcommittee white paper.
- We like having the common headings among all the white papers, but appreciated the use of specific subheadings in the education white paper. The subheadings greatly facilitated the ease of reading. We think this will be a good model for the other white papers.
- We also appreciated that Rob Bertram and James McFerson were fairly far along on their outline and that Keith Woeste was collecting his thoughts/concepts as he begins to develop his outline. For those who have completed their outline or first draft of the white paper, their tips for success were—just set aside a day and do it or if you have an active subcommittee, schedule a conference call to discuss the outline and who will volunteer to write the various sections. If you want a conference call and have picked a time, Phil Simon will assist with the logistics of setting up conference call (we really appreciate Phil’s help). Also, remember that a first draft does not need to be perfect, so we wanted to not have so many thoughts or concerns as to delay the initial writing.
- We decided to retain our previously agreed upon schedule of having he white papers ready for review by March 15, with comments back by March 22, and a conference call on March 26 (see below). As outlines are completed they will be circulated to the white paper subcommittee.
- As the white papers and outlines are created, we thought it would be good to give some thought on how to crosslink our materials for a “Google” ready audience. Our goal is to keep the reader in our materials and allow them to go back and forth among our materials. Hence at the polishing stage, we may want to consider having key words that will link our white papers together.
- Some of our concerns were: (Many of these will be deferred to Caron Gala and Karl Glasener for input)
- What is the best way to get the message out?
- Are we too or not enough technical? Will we need to have a series of definitions? Should we use “varieties” instead of “cultivars” and similarly use language that may be better understood by the lay audience?
- Do we want references (here our thought was to have them and we can remove them if needed for some audiences).
- We had an excellent discussion on how to tie in agronomic, horticultural, and forestry examples to be inclusive and broadly interesting to various audiences. We also noted that in nutrition for perishable food, that concepts such as year-round availability and store shelves with colorful and excellent tasting food are important aspects of nutrition. This concept could be linked to the need for a globally competitive agriculture. Affordability is also important.
- The next conference call will be March 26 at 1 PM Eastern, Noon Central, 11 AM Mountain, and 10 Pacific time.
- Minutes of telephone conference #10 on January 24, 2008
- Members present: Steve Baenziger, Caron Gala, Steve McKeand, Herb Ohm, Linda Pollak, Kay Simmons, Phil Simon, Tom Stalker, Dave Stelly, Ann Marie Thro, Greg Tolla, Todd Wehner, Linda Wessel-Beaver
- Tentative agenda for June
16-18
2nd annual workshop
- Monday, June 16
- 2:00 pm: Arrive and registration
- 2:00 pm: Executive committee meeting
- 4:15 pm: Leave for Monsanto
- 5:00 pm: Welcome and Monsanto tour
- 6:30 pm: Dinner
- 7:30 pm: Speaker, Science in the public arena: Monsanto Scientist
- 9:00 pm: Return to hotel
- Tuesday, June 17
- 7:00 am: Breakfast
- 8:00 am: Introduction / Overview of APBA (PBCC) activities
- 8:30 am: Invited speaker, Food and nutrition: Henry Thompson, Univ. Colorado
- 9:00 am: Small-group discussions (7 groups of 30 or 3 groups of 70)
- 10:05 am: Refreshment break
- 10:45 am: Small-group reports (3 min reports from 7 groups or 5 min reports from 3 groups)
- 11:15 am: Invited speaker, Environment and plant breeding: Jerry DeWitt, Leopold Center
- 12:00 noon: Lunch
- 1:15 pm: Small-group discussions (7 groups of 30 or 3 groups of 70)
- 2:15 pm: Small-group reports (3 min reports from 7 groups or 5 min reports from 3 groups)
- 2:45 pm: Panel discussion, Metrics and accountability
- Moderator: Ann Marie Thro (note taker: ?)
- Variety registration journals: Jeff Pedersen
- Agricultural experiment stations: Molly Jahn
- USDA-ARS: Charlie Stuber, NC State Univ.
- Sustainable agriculture groups: Chuck Hassebrook, Univ. Nebraska
- Seed company plant breeders: Greg Tolla, Seminis Vegetable Seeds
- 3:15 pm: Refreshment break
- 3:45 pm: Small-group discussions (7 groups of 30 or 3 groups of 70)
- 4:45 pm: Small-group reports (3 min reports from 7 groups or 5 min reports from 3 groups)
- 5:15 pm: Summarizing remarks
- 6:30 pm: Dinner
- 7:30 pm: White paper discussions; subcommittee meetings; elections subcommittee; early career discussion group
- Wednesday, June 18
- 7:00 am: Breakfast
- 8:00 am: Breakout sessions, subcommittee sessions (white paper development)
- 9:00 am: Report from subcommittees / Summarizing remarks
- 10:00 am: Refreshment break
- 10:30 am: Large-group discussion
- 11:00 am: Concluding remarks
- 11:30 am: Business session, elections
- 12:30 pm: Return home
- 1:00 pm: Executive committee meeting
- Plant breeding symposium at CSSA annual conference, Herb Ohm
- Topics:
- Plant Breeding: Critical contributions to life - sustaining our food supply Joe Keeshaw, Ted Crosbie, Steve Baenziger)
- The 21st Century Plant Breeder (Karen Moldenhauer, Joe Keeshaw)
- Phenomics, genomics, high-throughput genotyping in crop improvement (Scott Tingey)
- Plant Breeding Instruction: Methodology, Pedagogy (Liz Lee, Kim Kidwell)
- University – Industry – Government (USDA, CSREES, NSF) partnerships in education/training of plant breeders (George Cooper, Linda Wessel-Beaver)
- International partnerships for educating students in plant breeding (Susan McCooch)
- Communicating with the public: farmers, seed producers, consumers (George Dubcovsky, Jamie Sherman)
- Format:
- Speakers
- Discussion session
- 3 hour total time
- Next conference call
- Presenters
- Presentation: Science in the public arena
- Invited speaker, Food and nutrition: Henry Thompson, Univ. Colorado
- Invited speaker, Environment and plant breeding: Jerry DeWitt, Leopold Center
- Discussion panel: Ann Marie Thro, Jeff Pedersen, Molly Jahn, Charlie Stuber, Chuck Hassebrook, Greg Tolla
- Minutes of telephone conference #9 on January 16, 2008 (white paper subcommittee)
- Members present: Stephen Baenziger, Phil Simon, Anne Marie Thro, Craig Yencho, Rob Bertram, James McFerson, Travis Frey, Linda Pollak, Tom Stalker, David Knauft
- The following actions were taken at the meeting:
- The white paper document would be three to 5 pages long (having lots of bullet points) with a one page executive summary that could be shared with groups not interested in reading the longer document.
- The format of the white paper will be:
- Introduction: an example of a past success due to plant breeding with the understanding that we can do more in the future.
- The national problem and the opportunity: What we can do if we are funded at a level to impact the problem, what resources would be needed, and what are the metrics of success.
- The missed opportunity if we are not funded to help resolve the national problem. Basically what have we lost by not supporting plant breeding to help solve the problem.
- A subcommittee can ask for input or review from people not currently members of the SCC-80 group (e.g. rural sociologists or economists, etc.). It was recommended that these reviewers be considered as possible speakers or invitees for the June meeting as important partners. The names will be referred to the speakers/program planning committee.
- The USDA Strategic Plan can be found at: http://www.ocfo.usda.gov/usdasp/usdasp.htm which can provide background on the USDA plans and may serve as example of white papers.
- Some key concepts will be that we are funding the future using new science. We are not doing the same old thing, but rather taking advantage of genomics and translating their knowledge into tangible products. The goal will be to leverage past and current investments in science so that their full advantage can be achieved (realized) through plant breeding. A cross cutting issue that is becoming more important is climate change and we will have to address this issue in many of the white papers. A tag line of “Changing plants for changing times” was suggested.
- The timelines for the white papers were decided:
- Outline finished and circulated to the white paper committee by Feb. 15, 2008. Comments on the outline received by Feb. 22. Conference call on Feb. 25 (1 PM eastern, noon central, 11 AM mountain, and 10 AM Pacific)
- First draft completed and circulated to the white paper committee by March 15, 2008. Comments back by March 22. Conference call to be determined.
- Polished white paper version completed by April 15, 2008. This version will be available to external review.
- One goal of the white papers will be to engage our partners who can affect and advocate change.
- For those who could not call in, please feel free to contact Stephen Baenziger if you have any questions.
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