Athens, Georgia
February 19, 2009
By Brad Haire, University of
Georgia
Charlie Brummer believes there is room for improvement – at
least when it comes to plants.
“I'm a plant breeder, which means my job is to develop new plant
varieties with improved traits,” said Brummer, a crop and soil
sciences professor with the
University of Georgia College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences.
Whether creating better crops to fuel the United States in the
future, ones to help farmers make more money – or just one with
a prettier bloom, plant breeding is basically a simple concept,
he said. Man’s been doing it for 10,000 years.
“What we do, and what those early humans did, is to select among
a population of plants for the ones that have the traits we want
- large seed size, green leaves, big red flowers, etc.,” he
said. “We look for good plants, cross them together and get even
better plants.”
Brummer started his career as an undergraduate potato breeder at
Penn State in 1985. As the director of the UGA Institute of
Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics, he now breeds alfalfa,
white and red clover, tall fescue, orchard grass and perennial
ryegrass.
He is also part of some major grants award to UGA to develop
bioenergy crops such as switch grass.
Biofuel is a political topic that’s tough to predict, he said.
When or whether the alternative energy industry strengthens in
the U.S. depends on what kinds of programs are put in place now
and in the future.
“We can manipulate plants in various ways just through breeding
to make better feedstock for whatever biofuel platform
ultimately develops,” he said.
From his perspective as a breeder, it’s hard to select for one
trait one year and another trait the next. The process takes
time and needs consistent goals or targets to work.
“I don't think breeding will be the deciding factor, though, in
whether a biofuel industry develops or not,” he said. “Breeding
can certainly tailor better biofuels to that industry, but some
combination of government and private enterprise nurturing the
industry as it gets going has to occur for us so that growing
biofuels in the first place is economically feasible. Once that
happens, we (the breeders) can work our magic and further
increase the productivity and profitability of the sector.”
Plant breeding has undergone huge changes since the early part
of the 20th century when it was formalized as a discipline, he
said. Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin crossed plants to produce
new varieties. But the later application of genetic principles
to the plant breeding process opened up the discipline’s
possibilities and helped the breeder predict what could be.
“More recently, the application of biotechnolgy and genomics has
given plant breeders a much more precise understanding of the
crops or plants they work with and presents opportunities to
manipulate traits more efficiently and effectively,” he said.
“The use of these tools is rapidly expanding, and together with
more sophisticated statistical tools, really opens up many
possibilities to develop superior plant varieties in the
future.”
One thing hasn’t changed, though. A good plant breeder still has
to be a kind of Jack-of-all-trades, so to speak, he said. From
pathology, entomology and agronomy to biology and statistics, he
has many tools to use in the toolbox. “We apply all this
different technology to the actual plants that people grow.” |
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