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The European UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy celebrated the graduation of Class VIII with a ceremony and reception in Davis, California. This marked the completion of an intensive two-year professional development program for 20 plant breeding professionals representing 10 countries: Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Turkey, Germany, France, Belgium, and Thailand.

Reagan Reed, a Ph.D. candidate in Khanday Imtiyaz's lab at UC Davis, has a way of describing his research that might make a plant breeder pause.

“I’m the sort of person who likes to break things to understand them,” he says.

What he breaks are genes involved in seed germination. Reed is investigating whether changing those genes can help seeds establish healthy plants under a wider range of conditions.

Turning genetics into commercial impact requires more than technical skill, it requires guiding teams, influencing decisions, and aligning strategy.
That’s why the UC Davis Seed Biotechnology Center built the 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀.
• 𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 & 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀: Master the human side of innovation to maximize the impact of your work and elevate your career.

The 2027 International Pepper Conference is a 3-day conference, hosted by Allen Van Deynze. We welcome local and international growers, plant breeders and scientists, processors, equipment manufacturers and students.  The conference will include the latest developments in the peppers industry trends, technology, genomics, high throughput phenotyping and plant breeding. The tour will include visits to processors, grower fields and the latest in mechanical harvesting technologies. 

Kent Bradford is offering a new way of looking at biological data that, he says, “radically alters what we can see.” 

Traditionally, scientists see things in terms of averages to understand the behavior of plants, cells, molecules – all kinds of things. But now, the UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus argues, new technologies allow us to see data points as individuals and take a closer look at the statistical outliers. Usually dismissed as “noise” and “error,” they in fact offer a goldmine of new insights about how things respond to a stimulus.

SBC's Director of Research, Imtiyaz Khanday, is one of six people at UC Davis who received the Early Career Faculty Research Excellence Award, granted along with a $50,000 prize by the University of California Office of the President.

🌱 European University of California, Davis Plant Breeding Academy Class VIII: Session 5 in the books!

🌍 What an incredible global cohort!
We welcomed plant breeders from across the world—Japan, New Zealand, the USA, Spain, Turkey, South Africa, Israel, and more! Their engagement, thoughtful discussions, and insightful questions made this a truly exceptional learning experience.
No matter where you are in your plant breeding journey, we wish you continued success and look forward to seeing the impact you'll make in the field.

The Seed Biotechnology Center is proud to announce that the founding director of SBC, Dr. Kent Bradford, has authored the new book "Populations of Individuals" which is scheduled to be released on June 26, 2026 by Oxford University Press. 

This book: 

Venkatesan Sundaresan, a Distinguished Professor of plant biology and plant sciences, and Imtiyaz Khanday, an assistant professor of plant sciences, travelled to Hanoi, Vietnam to receive the prize at a special VinFuture Foundation ceremony Dec. 5.