A Look Into Bayer Crop Science - Corn Breeding

Bayer Crop Science Author

08/14/2020 Added

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Overview of modern plant breeding from genomics and gene editing to commercial breeding. Clint Turnbull, PhD Commercial Development Breeder Bayer Crop Science Waco, Nebraska Silvano Ocheya, PhD Line Development Breeder Bayer Crop Science Waco, Nebraska

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[00:00:00.920]Hi, I'm Ashleigh Browning,
[00:00:02.390]and I'm an operations lead here at Bayer.
[00:00:04.510]And I am interviewing Clint Turnbull, he's going to start
[00:00:08.030]out by telling us a little bit about himself.
[00:00:10.473]Yeah, good morning.
[00:00:11.450]Clinton Turnbull, I'm a commercial development corn breeder
[00:00:14.180]with Bayer Crop Science.
[00:00:15.680]Here in corn field near our station located
[00:00:18.800]in Waco, Nebraska with Bayer Crop Science.
[00:00:22.510]Our primary purpose out in this direction
[00:00:26.410]is to identify materials adapted
[00:00:28.620]to the Western corn belt.
[00:00:30.516]Silvano could you tell us a little bit
[00:00:32.123]about your background and what you do here?
[00:00:34.990]Yeah, so thank you for the question.
[00:00:37.330]So my name is Silvano Assanga Ocheya.
[00:00:40.500]I'm based here in Waco.
[00:00:42.070]I'm a corn breeder focusing
[00:00:43.710]on the Western footprints specifically 115 RM maturity.
[00:00:49.860]I've been with Bayer for the last four years.
[00:00:53.180]We do work on corn across the entire footprint
[00:00:56.470]in the Western corn belt.
[00:00:58.570]Even though I'm based here in Waco,
[00:01:00.670]we do a cross entire range from east to west.
[00:01:05.390]Can you walk us through your general
[00:01:07.560]plant breeding process that you go through?
[00:01:10.470]Yeah, sure.
[00:01:11.303]So there's three main steps I always think
[00:01:14.650]about when they're doing genetic improvement for plants.
[00:01:17.840]And that is first, we have to have genetic variation
[00:01:21.120]or create the genetic variation somehow.
[00:01:23.960]And then we need to evaluate the genetic variation
[00:01:26.700]in some manner and then identify the best
[00:01:30.530]for whatever trait of interest we're trying to improve.
[00:01:32.848]And when we identify that we recombine
[00:01:36.100]and start the process over again.
[00:01:40.080]How do you choose the parents
[00:01:42.460]for selection or to create your new products?
[00:01:46.300]So the main driver of selecting parents
[00:01:50.900]is still the objective of breeding our plants.
[00:01:54.140]So once you set the objective and then that guides you
[00:01:58.870]on which parent to select, to inter-mate in order
[00:02:02.340]to initiate the population.
[00:02:04.700]Now we have a pool of a big jump basin
[00:02:08.840]and we have also another pipeline that's really feeds
[00:02:11.990]into the leaves in terms of high value hyper types
[00:02:15.670]in order for us to maintain that lasting.
[00:02:18.110]So all the parents we have we look at the objectives
[00:02:23.560]and decide which combinations
[00:02:26.650]of the parents will answer our objective of trading program.
[00:02:30.920]And that's aided by several methods and tools of science
[00:02:36.020]including data science that guide us through to tell us
[00:02:40.350]these are the potential parents you need to inter-mate
[00:02:42.950]in order to meet the objective you've set.
[00:02:46.090]So that's essentially what drives
[00:02:48.370]our selection process with the parents.
[00:02:52.140]Silvano can you tell us
[00:02:53.530]how you use genomic selection in your breeding program?
[00:02:57.400]Yeah, so in a breeding program we quantify success
[00:03:01.670]by estimating genetic gains.
[00:03:04.690]Now genomic selections ties into genetic gains in question
[00:03:09.190]because it enable us to skip one year
[00:03:11.890]of testing effectively increasing the genetic gain.
[00:03:17.027]The way we used to in our breeding program
[00:03:19.410]is any material coming through the pipelines
[00:03:23.050]they undergo initial stages of population development
[00:03:27.310]all the way until we hit the genomic selection stage
[00:03:30.880]we estimate genomic estimated breeding values.
[00:03:34.050]We make selections based on that.
[00:03:36.260]And those that meet the thresholds
[00:03:38.758]they are advanced for the next stage of testing.
[00:03:41.840]Silvano after you make those genomic selections,
[00:03:44.950]how do you continue to advance
[00:03:46.580]that material through the pipeline?
[00:03:49.080]Yeah, so what you're seeing behind me is first year
[00:03:52.720]of testing after genomic selection.
[00:03:55.560]Basically we have several years of testing
[00:03:58.090]and at each stage we make the selection based on BLBPs
[00:04:03.920]and those selections advanced to the next level.
[00:04:06.840]So immediately after selection the first year
[00:04:10.910]of field testing is what we call the screening tool.
[00:04:15.400]And then from there the material advanced
[00:04:17.280]through the pipelines all the way to a point
[00:04:20.540]where we have inbred that really have commercial value
[00:04:24.340]and goes all the way to market development
[00:04:26.160]and commercialization for farmers to plant.
[00:04:31.570]What exactly are BLBPs?
[00:04:33.020]Yeah, so BLBPs stands for best lenient bias predictions.
[00:04:36.900]So essentially tells you future performance
[00:04:40.200]of particular genotype and it can be estimated
[00:04:44.460]based on the phenotype only.
[00:04:46.590]You can include pedigree information and also you can
[00:04:49.980]include genotype information because that G-BLBP once
[00:04:54.700]we include genotype information.
[00:04:58.760]And those estimates they are better estimates
[00:05:02.420]than just looking at the mean because you are adjusting
[00:05:05.160]for all other variations essentially making
[00:05:08.810]your estimation better and you can do better selections
[00:05:12.800]based on the BLBPs rather than the means.
[00:05:17.131]So what exactly is the relationship
[00:05:19.820]between the BLBPs and the final product?
[00:05:23.800]Yeah, so we estimate BLBP but what goes to the farmer
[00:05:28.800]it's really a product that perform very high,
[00:05:33.290]better than the current products in the market.
[00:05:36.080]So even though we do all the analytic to estimate BLBP,
[00:05:39.950]we still do the testing in the field to just make sure
[00:05:44.063]that what we estimate matches with what we see
[00:05:47.000]before any product becomes commercial.
[00:05:49.860]It's hard to find the one magic hybrid
[00:05:52.330]that's gonna cover the entire corn belts.
[00:05:54.370]How do you guys work on balancing
[00:05:56.300]that portfolio for customers?
[00:05:59.360]Yeah, excellent question because just as a farmer
[00:06:03.030]might not choose the one perfect hybrid
[00:06:06.010]to plant 100% of his acres.
[00:06:09.320]We don't do the same when we're developing
[00:06:12.350]our improved germplasm either.
[00:06:14.650]So if you think about on a farm situation,
[00:06:17.760]a farmer may plant three to five different products
[00:06:22.970]across his farm, maybe more depending
[00:06:25.780]on his acceptance to risk.
[00:06:29.110]But what he's going to do
[00:06:30.270]is balance of high yield potential.
[00:06:35.180]Maybe something that's better for some threat
[00:06:37.860]or a different threat, maybe
[00:06:39.260]has a slight weakness here or there.
[00:06:41.730]Maybe we're talking a little bit spread
[00:06:43.450]on maturity, something like that.
[00:06:46.060]So in the pipeline, we kind of manage
[00:06:48.740]this holistically kind of similarly we select.
[00:06:53.160]Of course we would like the very perfect hybrid
[00:06:56.182]to be developed but that is very challenging
[00:06:58.520]to do as you know.
[00:07:00.970]So what we want to do is make sure we cover all the bases.
[00:07:05.300]High yield yes, fast dry down, strong test weight,
[00:07:10.990]tolerance to stock lodging, root lodging,
[00:07:14.570]maybe tolerance to anthrax stock rot, tolerance
[00:07:18.273]to diseases, Northern leaf blight, ear rot,
[00:07:23.020]gas wilt, that's to name a few.
[00:07:27.020]So we can't develop the one hybrid
[00:07:29.010]with all the best things for this trade.
[00:07:31.600]What we do is we make sure we cover the breadth
[00:07:34.260]of improvement on those traits within the germplasm pool.
[00:07:39.610]And over time, over cycles of breeding,
[00:07:43.340]we will get material that is better and better and better
[00:07:46.930]for all of those traits as a whole.
[00:07:53.170]So Clint, transgenic or GMOs kind of have
[00:07:56.590]a negative connotation in the media right now.
[00:07:59.400]What are some advantages and why are we putting
[00:08:01.580]that into our products?
[00:08:02.750]How does that help our customers?
[00:08:05.600]Yeah, definitely.
[00:08:06.622]Good question again.
[00:08:09.220]So the reason to introduce transgenics to a crop
[00:08:14.360]is for bottom line for the customer, for the producer.
[00:08:20.340]Farmers nowadays are growing more and more acres
[00:08:23.330]with fewer and fewer labor resources.
[00:08:26.620]So we want to provide options
[00:08:29.060]for flexibility on their farm situation.
[00:08:32.110]Some of the reasons people might choose a GM product
[00:08:35.720]will be preventing the need to apply insecticides.
[00:08:42.070]If you've got insecticide built in with your genetics.
[00:08:47.410]And that means we don't have to apply a toxic substance
[00:08:50.851]on the fields and minimizing
[00:08:53.606]the environment exposure in seconds, something like that.
[00:08:58.590]It might be ease of operation instead of applying
[00:09:03.040]an expensive herbicide, we can use herbicide tolerance
[00:09:07.722]to effectively control weeds.
[00:09:17.130]It's all about bottom line to the farmer
[00:09:22.490]and protecting the environment is how I see.
[00:09:26.150]In years gone by we wouldn't be able
[00:09:30.240]to do no till farming without some of our GM technologies.
[00:09:36.310]It just wouldn't be feasible.
[00:09:39.360]Is there anything you would want
[00:09:40.990]to tell the future plant breeders, the next generation?
[00:09:44.850]Yes, the breeding and genetics is always fun.
[00:09:49.560]It's very exciting to see your products
[00:09:52.490]in the fields observe genetic variations
[00:09:57.580]to make selection, to see products advance
[00:10:01.350]all the way to commercials and you see
[00:10:03.150]the products in the farmers fields.
[00:10:05.260]It's a very fulfilling process.
[00:10:08.680]But besides that, all sort of technology
[00:10:12.130]has made breeding really a fun career.
[00:10:17.090]It's no longer the conventional forces
[00:10:20.510]that were there 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
[00:10:24.239]There's so many technology
[00:10:26.425]that really help breeding program, talk of analytics,
[00:10:32.992]talk of all the imaging protocols.
[00:10:35.520]So it all makes breeding exciting.
[00:10:41.400]Clint tell me what makes plant breeding fun for you,
[00:10:43.940]why do you love your job?
[00:10:45.341]Yeah, exactly.
[00:10:46.670]So a lot of the same things that Silvano had mentioned
[00:10:49.710]but really what is exciting is when we can go to the field
[00:10:54.302]and we see a new problem that the farmer might face.
[00:10:58.560]There's always some new thing that comes along
[00:11:02.900]or you're at some meeting, some dealer meeting
[00:11:06.040]and some farmer says, I've got something to yourself.
[00:11:10.860]I saw that problem last year.
[00:11:13.120]Maybe we should investigate that.
[00:11:15.320]How cool is that?
[00:11:17.040]And then, okay, you developed some populations,
[00:11:20.830]you figure out some methodologies
[00:11:22.900]to evaluate that specific problem.
[00:11:26.140]Maybe it's some disease inoculation and then so exciting
[00:11:32.440]when you actually develop
[00:11:34.560]that product that goes to commercial.
[00:11:37.040]You see the signs down the highway I had a hand in that.
[00:11:42.080]I or my team, the larger team,
[00:11:45.540]at Bayer Crop Science had a hand in that.
[00:11:48.030]I was a part of it and it's developing a better product
[00:11:52.409]for the farmer, for the environment, for our community,
[00:11:56.800]for my aunts and uncles, brothers, and sisters, friends,
[00:11:59.630]and relatives to have more thriving life.
[00:12:02.830]So that's really what kind of gets me going.

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A Look Into Bayer Crop Science - Corn Breeding

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