October 2008 E-News
SBC Plays Prominent Role at the American Seed Research Summit
What began as a concept developed between the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) and the UC Davis Seed Biotechnology Center (SBC) to convene a forum to address major challenges in seed research became a reality last month. Through the support of ASTA, the American Seed Research Foundation (ASRF), and the National Council of Commercial Plant Breeders (NCCPB), the American Seed Research Summit brought together over 40 research leaders from industry, academia and government to discuss critical challenges facing the seed and plant breeding research community. The SBC’s Academic Director, Kent Bradford, and keynote speakers from Ball Horticultural (Anna Ball), USDA's Agricultural Research Service (Eliot Herman), the University of Wisconsin (Molly Jahn), Pioneer Hi-Bred (William Niebur), and the Monsanto Company (Robert Fraley) provided viewpoints on seed research today and the challenges and opportunities for tomorrow. Participants worked through a structured workshop format to identify and prioritize the key research topics and policy issues facing the seed industry and to formulate strategies to address them. A full report on the Summit is being drafted by the SBC and is scheduled to be released by ASTA at the Corn & Sorghum and Soybean Seed Research Conference in early December 2008 (www.amseed.org).
The organizing committee for this event included:
Fritz Behr, President, NCCPB
Kent Bradford, Academic Director, SBC
Peter Bretting, National Program Leader, USDA/ARS
Mike Campbell, Executive Director, SBC
Ric Dunkle, Senior Director, Seed Health and Trade, ASTA
Andy Lavigne, President and CEO, ASTA
Jamie Miller, Assistant Director, SBC
Rob Robinson, President of ASRF
Gary Whiteaker, Chairman, Scientific Advisory Council, ASRF
For more information, please contact Jamie Miller at 530-752-9985 or jkmiller@ucdavis.edu.
Welcome Dr. Jamie Miller
Dr. Miller is the Assistant Director of the Seed Biotechnology Center and works to develop substantial, long-term collaborations and partnerships between faculty and the seed industry. She received a H.B.S in Biochemistry/Biophysics from Oregon State University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology where she studied cellular signaling pathways in breast cancer. Dr. Miller is a UC Discovery Fellow at the Center.
Seed Biology, Production & Quality Course (now open for enrollment)
The Seed Biotechnology Center, together with UC Davis Extension, is offering a two-day class focused on seed biology on March 25-26, 2009. This unique course is designed for professionals in the seed industry, crop consultants and growers to update and expand their current knowledge. Participants will learn fundamental and specialized information on topics including seed development, production, harvesting, testing, conditioning, enhancement, storage, and quality assessment. This course is completely updated and the instructors include: Dr. Derek Bewley (University of Guelph, Canada), Dr. Henk Hilhorst (Wageningen University, The Netherlands), Dr. Hiro Nanogaki (Oregon State University, Corvallis) and Dr. Kent Bradford and Dr. Allen Van Deynze from the University of California, Davis. For more information and to enroll, go to: http://sbc.ucdavis.edu.
SBC and a SolCAP Opportunity
The SBC will play a role in a $5 million Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP) to study specialty crops within Solanaceae, including potato and tomato. The Solanaceae Coordinated Agricultural Project (SolCAP) brings together an integrated team of researchers, educators and extension specialists at Michigan State University, The Ohio State University, Cornell University, University of California, Davis and Oregon State University to incorporate emerging DNA-sequence data into efforts to improve vegetable crops. Potato and tomato are the two most important vegetable crops in Solanaceae, a taxonomic family that includes pepper, eggplant, and petunia. The project will identify DNA sequence variation in genes associated with high value traits, such as carbohydrate and vitamin content and link these traits with breeder friendly markers. For more information go to: http://sbc.ucdavis.edu.
Questions? Comments? Contact Sue DiTomaso at 530-754-7333 or scwebster@ucdavis.edu.