E-Series: Hybrid Breeding Strategies

COURSE OVERVIEW:

Foundational level, designed for plant breeders and their teams, this course will aid in the design and development of a true hybrid breeding engine, covering the topics of breeding targets, germplasm, and trait organization into pools, the importance of hybrid testing/evaluation, early vs late generation testing, choice of testers, and more.

This course is a recommended prerequisite for UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy.

April 9 & 11, 2024

(2 - half-days, ONLINE)
Time: 7:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Pacific time zone (PDT)

Early Registration Price: $770
Regular Registration Price: $890
*(early registration discount ends January 31, 2024)

INSTRUCTORS:

Ken Owens, Ph.D.
Ken Owens comes with over 37 years of experience in Vegetable Breeding. A University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate, Ken began his career as a cucumber and pepper breeder with Peto Seed in Woodland, California back in 1982. In 2000 he co-founded a start-up which later became recognized as Magnum Seeds where he helped establish Breeding, Seed Production, and Sales activities for 6 vegetable classes. During his prolific 37-year vegetable breeding career, Ken and his team bred countless varieties for global markets, worth almost half a Billion Dollars in Sales. Ken is looking forward to giving back and sharing his experiences with new generations of plant breeders.

Jovan Djordjevic, Ph.D.
Jovan is a plant breeder & seed executive with over 25 years of experience in the field crops and vegetable seed industries. His career began in France in 1996, as a Corn Breeder for Monsanto. Jovan continued in Canada as the Canola Breeding Lead for Monsanto, then in California as the R&D Team lead for Bayer/BASF. Throughout his prolific career, he has been a part of over 200 releases of hybrid varieties of corn, canola, tomato, pepper, sweet corn, watermelon, melon, cucumber, onions, carrots, and leek. In addition to being an SBC director of education, instructor for Plant Breeding academies and other SBC courses, Jovan is one of the founders and board director for Murray River Seeds and an industry consultant for plant breeding and business strategies with F2Gen LLC. He is looking forward, together with the SBC team of instructors, to impart his experiences to future generations of plant breeders and other seed industry professionals.

Attention International students: Please note before you register that you may enter your international phone number in the "Course Registration Information" section but in the "Contact information/Billing information" section, phone numbers must be in US format so you can enter: (530) 400-1234. Email jerobinson@ucdavis.edu with any additional questions or issues you may have.

Questions? Contact us at sbc@ucdavis.edu