The National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) has announced its awardees for their outstanding accomplishments in five categories: Early Career Scientist, Lifetime Achievement, Public Sector Plant Breeding Impact, Private Sector Plant Breeding Impact, and Friends of Plant Breeding.
The 2021 NAPB awardees exemplify the very best in plant breeding research, education, outreach, and leadership. They model persistent dedication and a passionate devotion to applying their plant breeding skills and technical excellence to promote food security, quality of life, and a sustainable future. They are committed to supporting the next generation of the plant breeding discipline. These outstanding professionals inspire plant breeders and scientists everywhere. The awardees are as follows.
NAPB 2021 EARLY CAREER SCIENTIST AWARD
Dr. Patricio R. Munoz, University of Florida
The Early Career Scientist Award of the National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) recognizes a scientist in the early stages of their plant breeding career who exhibits the ability to establish strong research foundations, to interact with multi-disciplinary teams, and to participate in relevant professional societies. The 2021 awardee is Dr. Patricio Munoz, Associate Professor at the University of Florida Horticultural Science Department, who leads the blueberry breeding and genomics program with responsibilities in research and education.
Although early in his career, notes a colleague: “Dr. Munoz is an exceptional basic and applied scientist, whose research and academic leadership and accomplishment in his field of quantitative genetic and genomic approaches to cultivar improvement and applied plant breeding are world-class.” Another colleague comments: “Since joining Florida as a faculty member, Patricio has developed a very impressive research program that is making fundamental contributions to plant breeding process development.”
Munoz’s research consists in improvement of cultivars with a local focus but a global impact, and in developing and implementing genomic tools to accelerate the breeding process with focus in outcrossing polyploid species. Currently he is working to develop low chilling requirement blueberries with better flavor, sensorial, and nutraceutical traits to enhance the consumption of blueberries, while still working on traditional crop traits that help producers stay competitive.
Munoz has already made significant contributions to molecular breeding, comments one colleague: “Generating markers with sufficient read depth to accurately call allele dosage in autotetraploids is a major challenge. Patricio has conducted excellent research on using target capture technologies to develop the necessary markers for applications including biparental mapping, GWAS, and genomic selection.”
2021 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Dr. Don Blackburn, Corteva Agrisciences (ret.)
The 2021 recipient of the National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) Lifetime Achievement Award is Dr. Don Blackburn, Corteva Agrisciences. This award is given for distinguished long-term service to the plant breeding discipline through research, teaching, outreach, and leadership. Dr. Blackburn retired from Corteva Agrisciences in February 2020 after more than 30 years at Dow AgroSciences (DAS) and Corteva Agrisciences (Corteva). During his career, notes one colleague: “Don’s contributions across the seed industry have resulted in improved products, improved systems, improved teams, and the development of our plant breeding community.”
Blackburn began his career at DAS as a successful corn breeder and station manager in Arlington WI, relocating in 2001 to DAS headquarters in Indianapolis, where he held numerous scientific and management leadership roles: Germplasm IP & Elite Genetics Licensing Leader, North America Breeding Leader, Seed Technology Center Director, and Global Breeding Leader of field and labs for all crops and geographies. Don was actively involved in merger-related activities between DAS and DuPont Pioneer, particularly Corteva’s new Plant Breeding subfunction.
As one Corteva associate observes: “First and foremost, Don is a plant breeder, but his engagement and influence go beyond. He directly influenced successful trait introgression and technology development and application for new crop integration, seed quality and more. This work, combined with his engaging and sincere personality, have enabled him to be successful in leading, staffing, and influencing across a broad range of venues.”
2021 PUBLIC SECTOR PLANT BREEDING IMPACT AWARD
Dr. Gina Brown-Guedira, USDA-ARS Raleigh
The National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) Public Sector Plant Breeding Impact Award recognizes an individual whose accomplishments as a scientist in the public sector have had extraordinary impact in the field of plant breeding in areas such as research, technological innovation, germplasm development, cultivar release, education, and leadership. The 2021 recipient is Dr. Gina Brown-Guedira, Research Geneticist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service and USDA professor at North Carolina State University.
For the past 17 years Brown-Guedira has provided leadership to the Eastern Regional Small Grains Genotyping Lab at Raleigh, NC, where she collaborates with teams of breeders and geneticists to implement genomics-assisted improvement of cereal crops. In this role, Brown-Guedira has worked to facilitate use of new DNA technologies by the small grains breeding community. As one colleague notes: “Gina has taken on the responsibility of bringing small grains breeders into the 21st century, first, with respect to use of molecular markers and more recently, with respect to genomic selection.”
Brown-Guedira’s lab has developed suites of molecular markers for genes affecting wheat growth and development, end-use quality, and pest resistance that can cost-effectively assay thousands of individuals in breeding programs. Her lab also routinely applies these markers to assess diverse germplasm for the presence of the associated genes and makes this valuable data available to wheat breeders and other collaborators. She has collaborated with the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project to provide programs in east Africa and Asia with marker information about genes conferring resistance to devastating new races of stem rust.
Brown-Guedira’s research has enabled public wheat breeding programs to utilize new genotyping technologies to identify marker-trait associations in biparental populations and association mapping panels. Recently, she has worked with colleagues to integrate genomic selection strategies into applied breeding. Her program continues to conduct research on trait mapping and development of cost-effective next-generation genotyping technologies for plant breeding.
2021 PRIVATE SECTOR PLANT BREEDING IMPACT AWARD
Dr. Mario Carlone, Corteva Agrisciences
The National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) Private Sector Plant Breeding Award, first established in 2020, recognizes an individual whose accomplishments as a scientist in the private sector have had extraordinary impact in the field of plant breeding in areas such as germplasm development, cultivar release, technological innovation, and leadership. The 2021 recipient is Dr. Mario Carlone, Corteva Agrisciences. Carlone began his career at Garst/ICI Seeds in Slater, IA, learning the ropes on private sector corn breeding from 1987 to 1995. He was committed from those early years to two fundamental principles: 1) comprehensive knowledge of the germplasm; and, 2) running exceptional quality yield trials and nursery plots. He has continued focusing on those principles throughout his highly productive career. As one colleague summarizes: “He knows the agronomic needs of customers and the germplasm patterns which best fit those needs.”
In 1995, Carlone was selected to conduct a corn breeding role in Princeton IL for Pioneer Hi-Bred, where he ran an extremely productive program and had a tremendous influence on the other corn breeders and breeding leadership within the organization. In recognition of his exceptional corn breeding accomplishments, he was promoted to Pioneer Research Fellow in 2003. Today he continues as Distinguished Corteva Agriscience Laureate, Corteva’s highest level science position. As one colleague explains this achievement: “Mario combines the qualities of interminably asking insightful and probing questions which he is then able to answer by putting into effect practical strategies to develop improved germplasm that positively change lives and society through agriculture.”
Another significant professional accomplishment is Carlone’s role as the “Global Breeding Zone Lead” for 105-115 CRM, in which he led a group of global corn breeders in all aspects to drive corn germplasm development and breeding strategy. Further highlighting his detailed and comprehensive knowledge of global corn germplasm, he was named “Global Corn Breeding Zone Lead” for all corn maturities globally in 2019.
As a measure of impact, one Corteva colleague points out: “Perhaps the easiest measure to quantify is Mario’s contribution to our commercial lineup, a staggering accomplishment. Inbreds and hybrids he has developed have resulted in over 13 million units of sales. To put that into context, in any one year of corn production in the U.S. , Mario would be responsible for hybrids on almost 40% of the 90 million acres in the U.S. alone.”
2021 FRIENDS OF PLANT BREEDING AWARD
Andrew (Andy) LaVigne, American Seed Trade Association
The National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) Friends of Plant Breeding Award honors individuals whose career may or may not have been involved in plant breeding, but who, through their professional activities and passion, have contributed significantly to the advancement of the plant breeding discipline. The 2021 recipient is Andrew (Andy) LaVigne, CEO, American Seed Trade Association (ASTA).
LaVigne has been directly and energetically involved as an advocate for plant breeding and agriculture throughout his career, first as a legislative assistant in Florida, and subsequently as a special assistant to the chief of staff for the U.S. Office of Secretary of Agriculture, CEO of the Florida Fertilizer and Agrichemical Association, and CEO at Florida Citrus Mutual. Since 2006 he has led ASTA, one of the oldest trade organizations in the United States, with a membership consisting of over 650 companies involved in seed production and distribution, plant breeding, and related industries in North America. As an authority on plant germplasm and breeding, ASTA advocates for science and policy issues of industry-wide importance.
Kent Bradford, Director of the Seed Biotechnology Center and Distinguished Professor at UC Davis, notes that Andy quickly and effectively engaged stakeholders in the seed and plant breeding industry by co-sponsoring a Seed Summit to develop strategic goals for the seed industry in 2008. Rick Falconer, Manager at Rijk Zwaan America, commends Andy’s mastery at bringing people, associations and plant breeding/seed industry stakeholders across crops and agricultural and food sectors to reach actionable strategies for advancement of the industry. Andy has encouraged ASTA collaboration with NAPB in many ways. He regularly attends NAPB meetings and is actively engaged with the NAPB Executive Committee to expand the organization’s footprint, especially with respect to regulatory issues, policy, and agricultural trade. Andy has pushed NAPB to be involved at the regional, national, and international level with various government and stakeholder groups. He has provided critical guidance on events with NAPB in Washington, DC, such as the 2019 Advanced Plant Breeding Symposiums with key agencies (USDA/EPA/FDA/US Trade) and a related series of workshops scheduled for September, 2021.
