An Industry Perspective on Training Needed for Today's Plant Breeders.

An industry perspective on training needed for today's plant breeders

Plant breeders working in today’s the private sector need more advanced scientific skills than ever before as the traditional skills in plant breeding have now been extended by application of genomics tools in breeding, advances in reproductive biology and lately the application of novel phenotyping in breeding. The traditional role of a plant breeder, working widely independently in their environment on germplasm development has been changed as breeding has become a more integrated discipline through interaction with laboratories, computational biology, di-haploid generation capabilities, winter nurseries etc.

This requires a different mindset in a modern commercial plant breeder. A different kind of preparation is needed at the graduate school level to not only convey scientific skills but also develop skills in project team management, teamwork, effective communication.

Several aspects of this new need on graduate student education will be presented and existing examples explored.