Commercial Biotech Impacts on a Public Breeding Program.

Historical public/private partnerships in plant breeding and seed development have contributed to significant improvements for agriculture. Widespread adoption of commercial biotech traits in certain agronomic crops might have unintended effects on those crops' public breeding programs. Complex quantitative issues such as environmental adaptation and stress tolerance are not likely to be addressed with plant-based biotechnology solutions alone. Public breeding programs focused on advancing genetic diversity in biotech-target crops face ambiguity in germplasm value and increasing issues with coexistence. Understanding the relationships between plant breeding and biotechnology on a crop and regional basis is important for comprehensive crop improvement.