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a Dep. of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, 411 Borlaug Hall, 1991 Buford Cir., St. Paul, MN 55108; M.O
b Dep. of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, 1102 S. Goodwin Av., Urbana, IL 61801
* Corresponding author (bernardo{at}umn.edu).
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ABSTRACT |
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 TOP ABSTRACT Five Key Themes Emerged... |
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Received for publication April 10, 2007.
a Dep. of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, 411 Borlaug Hall, 1991 Buford Cir., St. Paul, MN 55108; M.O
b Dep. of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, 1102 S. Goodwin Av., Urbana, IL 61801
* Corresponding author (bernardo{at}umn.edu).
This supplement to Crop Science includes 22 of the 28 papers presented during the 2006 International Plant Breeding Symposium, held on 21–26 August 2006 in Mexico City (One of the 28 papers has been previously published in Crop Science [Löffler et al. (2005), Crop Sci. 45:1708–1716]). The symposium served as a global forum for current plant breeding research in major row-crop species and honored Professor John W. Dudley of the University of Illinois for his 49 years of research, teaching, and service in plant breeding and genetics. A total of 356 scientists and students from 60 different countries participated in the symposium. Participation by many scientists from developing countries was made possible by generous financial support primarily from CIMMYT, Generation Challenge Program, HarvestPlus, Iowa State University, Monsanto, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Renessen, Syngenta Seeds, USDA, and the University of Illinois.
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Five Key Themes Emerged from the Papers Presented during the Symposium |
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TOPABSTRACTFive Key Themes Emerged... |
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"Environmental change."
The environments of crop plants are changing, particularly with regards to increased biotic and abiotic stresses and more sustainable production practices. The environments of crop breeders are changing, particularly with advances in science; increased investments in private breeding; decreased investments in public breeding; increased challenges in educating and training tomorrow's cadre of plant breeders; and changes in the needs of both producers and consumers.
Data, information, knowledge, application.
Data, information, and knowledge pertaining to quantitative genetics have led to useful breeding procedures and schemes. Information on quantitative trait loci or knowledge of candidate genes has led to useful diagnostic markers for different traits. Data, information, and knowledge of genomics must lead to selectable things for the breeder. Data, information, and knowledge will have little, if any, practical value unless they lead to useful applications. Integration is a key in this data-to-information-to-knowledge-to-application process.
Breaking disciplinary walls.
Plant breeding has long been a multidisciplinary endeavor, and the emergence of new fields such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics has added new vocabularies in which breeders should gain some level of fluency. Crop breeding research should be viewed in terms of a value chain in which old disciplines and new disciplines each contribute to the process of cultivar development.
New people, new tools, same goal.
The capacity for plant breeding should continue to be built in developing countries and sustained in developed countries. New plant breeders will likely have access to new or newly refined plant-breeding tools including apomixis, assays, association genetics, bioinformatics, diagnostic markers, environment manipulation, metabolic engineering, and transgenes. A new generation of plant breeders may wield a new suite of plant-breeding tools, but the goal of plant breeding will continue to be the improvement of plants for human benefit.
Throughout his career, Professor Dudley has excelled in educating plant breeders and in finding ways of exploiting new tools in plant breeding. A quotation displayed in his office at the University of Illinois describes Professor Dudley's attitude and philosophy:
"In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."
—Eric Hoffer
Plant breeders and plant breeding are in times of change. Some changes are planned, others unplanned, some are wanted, others unwanted. Plant breeders need to be learners rather than contentedly remain learned, and to this end we believe that these proceedings of the 2006 International Plant Breeding symposium will be useful for learning new developments, changes, challenges, and opportunities in plant breeding.
Received for publication April 10, 2007.
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