b'S T R A T E G Yinto the field, Swarm says.whats got weak roots or weak This increases the geneticstalks and whats going to gain.break, he says.So far, breeders have beenMoreover, these extreme able to accurately predictweather situations are likely performance of hybrids into continue to increase in fre-specific environments wherequency. While an overall shift previous data had alreadyin overall climate might look been collected, but now theylike the world getting warmer are working to expand thatby one degree two degrees, to predicting performance inKletter says thats just the new environments. average. In some places, the While you can still go totemperatures are rising much the same field in those pastfaster. environments, the weatherBut also, as the aver-is going to be different. Soages move, the chance of an being able to predict into newextreme event increases expo-environments becomes key,nentially. Swarm says. A one degree increase in The hope is to use this asthe average temperature can a product placement tool formean a two times increase breeders. in the chances of an extreme Just because I developOne major event that damaged corn in 2021 was the derecho in theevent, Kletter says. an inbred for my programMidwest.For example, in the U.S., it doesnt mean its going to bemight not be the overall slight best adapted to Indiana anda model, so this is somethingtest in a consistent environ- rise in temperature average Ohio. It may have a betterthat we are working on,ment.thats causing a problem, but fit in, say, Iowa. So, if weSwarm says. But when those condi- rather the increasing number can identify where to placetions arise, you want to beof extreme heat days during inbreds and hybrids, then weThe Future Starts Now prepared to handle those,the summer months.can test them in their bestEven with machine learning,Swarm says.We often think of climate environments, Swarm says. and a heavy reliance on dataHe is still optimistic, how- change in terms of longer-All of these predictions relycollection and application, itsever.term impacts, but the deci-on data collection. not going to be an easy road. The silver lining with thesesions we need to make to set We are collecting massiveSomething that makesweather events is that you getourselves up for future suc-amounts of data with drones,things difficult is that thesea chance to see what workscess have to happen today, weather stations and soilweather events are notin a hybrid. When we haveKletter says. SWprobes, Swarm says.predictable and uniform. Forstrong winds, you find out There have been a lot ofexample, 2012 was a drought advances, but its still a work inacross the Corn Belt, but progress. since then, for Indiana at least, ON THE WEBThe trick here is identify- we havent really had strongWHERE ing what is actually the mostdrought conditions, Swarm key to making the predic- says.Want to view the rest of the conversation? Check out the full webinar attions and how to use that inSo, breeders cant alwaysseedworld.com/saving-corn-from-the-drought-a-seed-world-strategy-webinar-podcast.ENDORSED BY 54/ SEEDWORLD.COMJANUARY 2022'