b'PARTNER CONTENTS&W Seed Company Continues to Deliver Innovation to the Alfalfa IndustryBuilding on 40 years of research and development, S&W leverages new technologies to make alfalfa a more resilient species. A s one of only a handful of companies producing genetics for the alfalfa seed industry, S&W Seed Company has a longstanding history of focusing on the yield performance and agronomic character that matter to alfalfa growers. Under the Alfalfa Partners brand in the U.S., both dormant and non-dormant varieties are a focus of the now 40-year-old company that brought together several successful breeding pro-grams. Chief among these were the legacy Pioneer alfalfa germ-plasm improvement program with more than 60 years of breeding history,S&Ws own salt tolerance emphasis with 40 years of con-tinuous breeding, and Seed Genetics Internationals Australian breeding and production for non-dormant varieties.S&W is one of the few companies that still does non-dormant alfalfa breeding in the world, says S&W Seeds Alfalfa Product Director, Robin Newell. In fact, there arent many alfalfa breeding companies in the world, and that makes S&W one of only a few sources for newS&Ws Nampa Idaho research farm is state-of-the-art with lab and genetics in alfalfa. There are however many brands of seed, hegreenhouses, plus 68 acres for selection nurseries, characterization says. S&W has a strong private label focus for companies wantingand performance trials.to take advantage of S&Ws germplasm diversity across both non-dormant and fall dormant variety selections. developed from elite S&W germplasm and is currently undergoing To develop new varieties from their germplasm base, S&W hasefficacy testing for yield, lignin reduction and relative feed quality invested in a 68 acre research farm and state-of-the-art researchincrease.facility complete with greenhouses, located near the S&W pro- In this case, we started with gene-edited, elite germplasm duction facility in Nampa, Idaho.These facilities compliment thethat we are now propagating across all fall dormancy classes. companys Australia operations. Were working to develop several varieties to run the gamut of fall We can do all of the selection work on-site for disease resis- dormancies, he says. tance and agronomic character, and our breeders have variousIn addition to gene editing, S&W has never waivered from their trials in different stages at all times, he says of S&Ws researchfocus on high yield, nematode resistance and disease resistance focus and capabilities. S&W also maintains several outlying especially root rots.locations where we select for agronomic improvements within keyFor example, the breeding program at S&W currently screens alfalfa growing environments, for example salt tolerance selec- new experimental varieties against 17 different isolates of Apha-tions under extreme saline conditions in the San Joaquin Valley,nomyces. When it comes to multi-race resistance in alfalfa, in South Australia, and in Utah.certainly weve got that covered, Newell says of S&Ws goal of S&W also partnered with a leading gene-editing technologymaking alfalfa a more resilient species in variable soil conditions. and technical expertise company, Calyxt, to lead the charge in al- He shares that most fields where alfalfa is grown have more than falfa gene editing. There are a host of traits that can be addressedone soil type and often more than one drainage class, and that through gene editing by modifying the endogenous genes in theone of the ways to get alfalfa to persist in variable soil types is to plant, without introducing new gene constructs from other spe- have high pathogen resistance and winter hardiness.cies that often have yield lag associated with the genetic engineer- I call it the blocking and tackling of plant breedingyou ing process. have to select for strong agronomic character, and thats what In conjunction with the Minnesota gene editing company,the S&W program, at its core, has been able to succeed in, he Calyxt, we have jointly developed a non-GMO reduced lignin genesays. And now all of this germplasm improvement history can be edited alfalfa product that we aim to launch in 2022, Newell says.available to our private label marketing partners, along with the Still in the development pipeline, the new S&W product waspromise of a bright future in gene-edited traits.DECEMBER 2020SEEDWORLD.COM /45'