As a part of the National Association of Plant Breeders 2014 meeting, which will be held Aug. 5-8 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, participants will have the opportunity to tour Syngenta’s research and development facility in Stanton.
The Stanton facility is home to more than a dozen research and development programs and departments, including Syngenta corn and sweet corn breeding programs. “Tour participants will be able to view demonstration plots in our corn breeding program and our Yield Accelerator, a small-scale, state-of-the-art sweet corn processing line, which showcases some of the sample processing technologies, such as those used in cutting, canning and freezing,” says Heather Merk, Syngenta Breeding Academy program lead. “They’ll get to come into the facility and see how things work and the different stages corn passes through.”
This year’s NAPB meeting is themed “Breeding for Water Stress” and Syngenta’s Good Growth Plan complements the theme with its commitment to increase the average productivity of the world’s major crops by 20 percent without using more land, water or inputs.
Innovations that showcase this commitment, such as Water+ Intelligent Irrigation Platform and and Agrisure Artesian corn hybrids, will be a part of the tour. There will be a presentation on Water+ Intelligent Irrigation Platform, which is a full-package solution for irrigated corn growers, Merk says. Participants will also learn more about Syngenta’s Artesian corn hybrids, which Merk explains convert water to grain more effectively than other hybrids.
Additionally, tour participants will see a lab demonstration on Enogen trait technology — the industry’s only corn output trait bioengineered specifically to enhance ethanol production.
The tour will depart the host hotel, Minneapolis Airport Marriott, at 7 a.m. for Syngenta’s Stanton facility and return around 1 p.m. “Syngenta has a long relationship with NAPB and is dedicated to providing an enriching environment for this group,” says Merk, who sits on the Executive Membership of NAPB’s Education Committee.
For more information about the NAPB meeting, visit www.plantbreeding.org. Registration is $450 for full members and $150 for students. To register for the 2014 meeting, visit www.plantbreeding.com.
