Times have changed due to DNA marker technologies that one company is making the most of to help breeders save time.
Mark Massoudi recently had an experience that reminded him of why he got into the business of helping seed companies and plant breeders do their work faster than ever thought possible.
“A brand-new client said to me, ‘I can’t believe Ag-Biotech provided the data within days. In the past we had to wait a month and-a-half. That’s been the norm until now. I just can’t wait that long,’” says Massoudi, owner of the California-based Ag-Biotech.
“For seed companies and plant breeders, time is always of the essence. The more they get done in as little time as possible, the more successful they are in their work.”
Ag-Biotech’s genomic testing services — starting with the company’s signature Marker-Assisted Selection (MAS) — help breeders to better grow their new cultivars and, as a result, their business.
“Whether it’s tomatoes, peppers, strawberries or a multitude of other crops, we have tools available to use that are available 12 months out of the year. It makes life much easier,” Massoudi says.
Using its molecular tools, Ag-Biotech can quickly validate both purity and percent purity of a seed lot. Massoudi uses the following scenario to illustrate why this is a huge benefit: Ag-Biotech’s services make the old-fashioned grow-out obsolete.
“If a company produces many seed lots of, say, cucurbits or Solanaceae, before they accept and pay for the seeds, they want to make sure the produced seed lots have acceptable hybrid purity
range. With our technology, within days clients have an answer. Traditionally, everyone had to do grow-outs: take the seeds and plant them and observe the phenotypic outcome to indicate what was a pass or no-pass,” Massoudi says.
“It’s what’s inside the seed that determines if you have the right hybrid. With our technology, you don’t have to wait six months to do your grow-out. You have very accurate data within days. You can prep your seeds, clean them up, coat them and get them ready for the market.”
It all comes down to time, Massoudi says. It’s the one resource seed companies and plant breeders have very limited amounts of, so it has to be used wisely. That’s where Ag-Biotech comes in.
“Turnaround time is extremely important to any plant breeder. With us, it’s like going to a hospital and you’re the most important patient. You need those test results right away. That’s where we come in. Why do you need the results fast? You have to make a decision. You can’t put things on hold and stop the plant from growing,” he notes.
Another example: sometimes you have to transplant to the field. You’re at the mercy of commercial growers’ time and planting schedule.
“A breeder must coordinate the time of their field evaluation with commercial growers’. A grower growing a few hundred acres can’t wait for a breeder’s test plot, they have to move on. Time is of the essence to make decisions and selections based on markers and transplant in the field with other growers so they can really evaluate their breeding materials under field growing conditions. We want to ensure breeders do not miss that short window.”
Visit agbiotech.net for more info.
