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Sustaining Plant Breeding–National Workshop

^a CALS, Agricultural Research Service, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
^b Department of Horticulture, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

^* Corresponding author (cstuber2{at}aol.com).

Sustaining plant breeding was the central theme of a national workshop held in Raleigh, NC, February 8–9, 2007. The workshop was spearheaded by Ann Marie Thro, National Program Staff of USDA-CSREES, and was co-hosted by the Departments of Crop Science and Horticultural Science of North Carolina State University. The major catalyst for the meeting was the growing imbalance between the importance of plant breeding to the nation's future versus the steady decline in the national plant breeding investment over the past 20 years. This has led to a significant reduction in the number of public plant breeders in the U.S. and an associated substantial weakening of university education programs in this area (Frey, 1996; Guner and Wehner, 2003; Morris et al., 2006; Price, 1999). Several previous efforts have drawn attention to our nation's declining plant breeding capacity (National Plant Breeding Study, 1994). More recently, a plant breeding workshop held in 2005 at Michigan State University also focused on the decline in numbers of plant breeders in the public arena (Hancock, 2006). However, the message from these efforts was not nationally audible or sustained through the establishment of a dedicated group interested in maintaining plant breeding as a science and profession.

Received for publication August 20, 2007.