b'public breeders and federal agencies on public policy issues, including alerts to existing and emerging threats to agricultural security that affect plant breeding.There are some things we will always dolike trying to iden-tify what capacity we have for plant breeding; keeping track of all the public sector breeders across the country; we will always care about germplasm; we will advocate for plant breeding. But we want to ensure everyone knows and cares about it. We have a lot of room to do new things beyond what weve traditionally done.Boosting Private Sector Involvement In the spirit of trying new things, the NAPB has established a new Industry Committee, which it hopes will synergize more industry participation.We want to try and bolster interaction between public and private sector scientists. There are some sectors of the industry thatMichael Kantar, plant breeder at the University of Hawaii and chair have been very active in the NAPB over the years and others lessof the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee, says working to so. The more people we can involve, the better, says Ozias-Akins. strengthen public sector plant breeding is crucial.Led by past-president Klaus Koehler, the committee will expand the exposure of commercial plant breeding activities tocan create targeted diversity); wide crosses (which can harness NAPB membership through the creation of opportunities fortraits from distantly-related species); and microbiomes (which mentorship, training, sabbaticals and other collaborations. can provide a source of genetic variation that benefits crop per-Part of the NAPBs mission regarding mentorship includes theformance).Borlaug Scholars program, which enables attendance of futureIts only been over the last 10,000 years or so that we may leaders at the NAPB annual meeting by providing funding tohave been in a period of low climate variability, which may have both undergraduate and graduate students. The scholars aremade agriculture as we know it possible. The agriculture of the paired with mentors who work with them to help the studentsfuture will be very different, and we need to think over the even figure out their career path. longer term than what weve been used to.Several of this years Borlaug Scholars have had experi- Meeting attendees were treated to tours of two University of ence working for private sector companies during the summerGeorgia campusesGriffin and Tifton. UGA plant breeding pro-months and beyond, which only strengthens the NAPBs involve- grams have developed over 400 commercialized plant cultivars ment with the private sector, adds Ozias-Akins. since 1990. Of those, 40% are agronomic crop cultivars, 30% are To feed a growing population in the face of climate change,cultivars of horticultural food crops, 27% are ornamental plant combining advocacy with communication and education helpscultivars, and 4% are turfgrass cultivarsthe latter having wide-us get that message out. spread usage on golf courses and athletic fields throughout the southern United States and in several countries, notably on ath-Facing Climate Change letic fields hosting World Cup, Olympic, and Super Bowl events. A big theme of this years meeting in Georgia was adapting toAs explained by UGA turfgrass breeder Paul Raymer, public future concerns such as climate change, which presents a vari- concerns over climate change are creeping into the turfgrass ety of challenges for breeders. Delivering the keynote addressrealm, with demand for drought-tolerant varieties on the rise. this year was Jeffrey Bennetzen, a geneticist at UGA. His talkTurfgrass breeding is different than just about all other addressed the need for plant breeders to introduce new sourcesbreeding programs. We work with about a dozen different spe-of genetic variation in order to breed the crops of the future. cies and the applications are very broad. Traits needed for dif-Plant breeding has accomplished some amazing things overferent applications vary widely, meaning our breeding programs the past 75 years, but its occurred at a cost, Bennetzen said.tend to fragment a lot, Raymer said. He went on to show how, according to the United Nations,Every market area has different demands. Homeowners the number of undernourished people worldwide has gone upwant something they dont have to water a lot and mow as often. every year since 2015. Almost one billion people are now consid- All these requirements add up and what we wind up with are ered malnourished around the globe. a lot of small breeding programs that look a lot different from At the same time, the rest of the world consumes far less pro- most others. As turfgrass breeders, were decades behind other tein per capita than Europeans and North Americans. Inputs likecrops in terms of genetics and genomics. Were making progress water, fertilizers and high-quality land are becoming less avail- in applying those toolstheyre a lot more affordable and youre able and/or more expensive, he noted. going to see them more widely adopted in the future.SWAdd to this the effects of climate change, and plant breeders everywhere have their work cut out for them in an effort to bring genetic diversity back to crop species.WHEREFor video and podcast interviews from this years NAPB meeting and info on According to Bennetzen, plant breeders have three power- ON THE fully updated tools at their disposalgenome editing (whichWEB award winners, visit seedworld.com/napb-2019/66/ SEEDWORLD.COMOCTOBER 2019'