Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Minutes for PBCC annual business meeting 2018 Guelph, Ontario August, 7, 2018

Opening Comments:

Introductions: Kate Evans, PBCC Current Chair; Ksenija Gasic, incoming chair; Mikey Kantar, incoming vice chair; Rich Pratt, incoming secretary. Full attendance list at the end of the document.

Overview:

Many people have been involved since the inception in 2005. We currently have 44/50 states represented, we are still missing Alaska, Idaho, Missouri, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.  Currently we are in the middle of the 5 year project. We will need to start writing the renewal in 2019 and have a more strategic planning meeting.  We are still getting up to $6K per year for PBCC activities from NAPB, which has been useful for getting plant breeding representatives to events, manuscripts, printing costs, and travel.

Objective 1: Collect, analyze, and disseminate information about the U.S. plant breeding effort in both public and private sectors, to include human capacity and access to enabling knowledge, technologies, germplasm, and infrastructure.

The initial focus has been on public programs, as there are very different constraints on public and private sector programs. This particular survey has been greatly helped by partnering with Dorrie Main’s NIFA NRSP10 and NSF PGRP projects. This has helped leverage plant genetic resource databases by adding in information about what plant breeders are doing. The survey was very detailed, (we recognize the questions were difficult), but in order to develop a time series we had to align the questions with previously conducted surveys. Good job to the reps who were able to “convince” colleagues to answer questions regarding the survey. Preliminary results suggest that we have pretty good coverage. The current interactive map is available on NRSP10. There is another map and poster associated with survey at the PBCC booth showing the 289 programs by crop that responded.

The goals in the next year are to publish the results, but also develop this survey as a time series where breeders can log in and fairly easily update their information within each 5 year PBCC renewal.  The timing of the 5 year repeat is important we want to align the survey with governmental 5 year plans to be in sync with government funding.

What do we do with the programs that missed the survey?

How do we get them involved?

Do we let them register but not fill out the survey?

Do we make a second map to help with the next round of the survey but keep it distinct from the survey?

How do we deal with programs that have closed? This can be done at every survey?

One way to deal with this is to do the survey every 2 years but write a report every 5 years. There is an opportunity to pool data with multiple calls over the 5 year time frame. There is a need to make sure to keep breeding program information current. One potential way to do this is to have a two tiered system, one basic information that can be accumulated by either the reps or the experiment stations, and to have more in depth survey every 2 years. Maybe there are ways of doing this to make reps more involved. This is really a missing data problem, state reps are one way, there was also the IDA survey data where there is a way to do web scraping from university web sites. It will be nice to include some standard interpolation procedures. We would like to be able to get an estimate of the number of total breeders surveyed (i.e. 80%),

There is a lack of a national strategy for breeding (e.g., to adapt crops to climate change); the survey data could be used to gather data for strategic planning. There is a need to vision the future of plant breeding for abiotic /biotic stress.

The private sector is not very interested in using this type of survey as they typically publish what they are willing to say. There is potential to tie this into PBCC objective four to see what private breeding companies need for the future workforce. The survey would have more to do with educational outputs rather than breeding outputs per se. This provides an opportunity for synergistic activities. This will also allow us to build on the current survey and to compare the current survey to published private sector data in order to identify differences and gaps. If you are interested in participating, contact Ksenija.

Objective 2: Promote the conservation, characterization, and utilization of plant genetic resources and access to those resources for plant breeding.

This objective had two major accomplishments, publishing a white paper on plant genetic resources and hosting a conference on training of future germplasm curators. These two activities resulted a large amount information of how to maintain the NPGS as well as developing a strategic plan for how to make sure these key positions will be maintained. The workgroup is currently working on creating online modules that can be used by professors in their classes as well as in NPGS training programs. There is a new proposal led by Pat Byrne to develop a multi-institutional genebank training program. PBCC and the public sector has really done a great job and there is a desire to increase the size of the team working on this objective.

Objective 3: Identify Best Management Practices for public sector intellectual property protection to encourage the creation and distribution of improved crops for a broad range of needs and opportunities.

Bill Tracy has continued to work on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), in addition to the summit and white paper. There is a lot of ongoing work communicating IPR issues to tech transfer professionals and tech transfer officers.

Objective 4: Optimize opportunities for public-private collaboration in plant breeding research and education, including continuing education for plant breeders.

The current focus is working on a common core for plant breeding that can be transferred across institutions. This has been done in the context of developing online degree programs and also comparing the skills gained to what is expected in both the public and private sectors. This is also the case with respect to international constraints. This pedagogy work has been done in collaboration with education researchers as well. This leads to common standards and language regarding what students should know and what results in a professional when they graduate from a program. This is done in context of Bloom’s taxonomy; this standardization leads to greater transferability. Multiple courses covering all levels of the taxonomy are needed in order to ensure that the level of understanding is sufficient for all the students. It is really important to look at what is really taught in all of the courses. It is very unclear what is actually being taught in courses across the country. The current model is based on the publication for developing a common core for genetics. The common core allows one to zoom in and zoom out with regard to the understanding of the students, it allows for scaffolding and level adjustment. It also allows for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of any given cohort of students. The next steps will be to use the Iowa State University distance learning program as a case study, and then use this to refine the initial common core that can be endorsed by PBCC and NAPB.

The second step will be to make all of the material available on line to make it easy for people to access information across institutions. There is also the ability to make a public tool for breeders. What is nice is that it allows for a teacher to have creative space within the common core. It would be nice to see a comparison with the other really good programs such as Texas A&M in addition to ISU. The goal is to have a kind of muscle memory for plant breeding: how do we get students to know what is important and can we test better than what we are doing now?

Objective 5: Foster communication among public plant breeders and federal agencies on public policy issues, including alerts to existing and emerging threats to agricultural security that are relevant to plant breeding.

The communication objective has progressed this year. In collaboration with the Cornell Alliance for Science we held a Science communication workshop for Plant science students with 35 participants (http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2018/07/workshop-trains-plant-scientists-communicate-science). These students worked on a number of skills, blog writing, talking to the media, podcasting, and video interviews. They all developed products and all of these will be posted on the PBCC website. There are new worksheets available for science communications.

Impact of Agriculture book – impactful varieties

There is a new a book being developed on the impact of agriculture in the United States; Allen Van Deynze is writing the chapter on plant breeding. One of the key questions is what are the 20 most impactful varieties for each state? State reps should be able to help with this effort. The real question is what is the impact of public sector breeding, and what has it done for you in the last 50 years. It will be key to engage the experiment station directors to make sure we have the historical context. Allen will draft a request for PBCC to send to the reps.

Renewal Ideas

Next year’s meeting will focus on renewal. Let’s be mindful and put forward small project teams to work on each objective.  Please send Mikey ideas.

Goals for 2018/2019

All five current objectives were addressed at the annual PBCC meeting within the ongoing SCC80 project. Nineteen state reps were in attendance, including four on Zoom (a new option for this year’s meeting) along with Ann Marie Thro and Eric Young. Paul Zankowski (Senior Advisor for Plant Health & Production and Plant Products, Office of the Chief Scientist) joined the meeting for the first time along with five other NAPB members (see appendix list).

Below are goals for each objective for the upcoming year:

Objective 1: Collect, analyze, and disseminate information about the U.S. plant breeding effort in both public and private sectors, to include human capacity and access to enabling knowledge, technologies, germplasm, and infrastructure [Lead Dr. Kate Evans]

• Complete analysis of public sector breeding survey for publication
• Continue to collaborate with NRSP10 to expand on-line ‘Breeder Map’ to include breeding programs that missed the survey
• Collate private sector breeding data from published annual reports
• Develop private sector breeding survey

Objective 2: Promote the conservation, characterization, and utilization of plant genetic resources and access to those resources for plant breeding. [Lead Dr. Pat Byrne]

• Develop detailed planning for a genebank management program with funding from submitted USDA-NIFA Higher Education Challenge Grant Program, ideally leading to submission of a full three-year proposal to implement the training program.
• Develop a series of short instructional videos for genebank training using funding from USDA-NLGRP

Objective 3: Identify Best Management Practices for public sector intellectual property protection to encourage the creation and distribution of improved crops for a broad range of needs and opportunities. [Lead Dr. Bill Tracy]

• Continue to provide outreach as opportunities arise

Objective 4: Optimize opportunities for public-private collaboration in plant breeding research and education, including continuing education for plant breeders. [Lead Dr. Thomas Lubberstedt]

• “Course pairing” to identify gaps and redundancies; comply with Bloom’s revised taxonomy (F18)
• Develop Hierarchical Web-tool for MS PLBR core concept/outcomes/learning objectives (F18)
• Feedback from ISU PLBR faculty (F18)
• Feedback from stakeholders / other universities outside ISU (S19)
• Release Web-tool (F19), instead of white paper

Objective 5. Foster communication among public plant breeders and federal agencies on public policy issues, including alerts to existing and emerging threats to agricultural security that are relevant to plant breeding. [Lead Drs. Mikey Kantar and Mike Gore]

• Build on the communication materials developed to reach more students and continue to make all materials available to the plant breeding community and broader public.

Other goals:

• Increase number of states represented in SSC80 and encourage participation by state reps in development of renewal objectives
• Continue to update and add content to PBCC webpages
• Create strategic plan with NAPB for improved alignment towards NAPB/PBCC common goals

2017/2018 PBCC Accomplishments:

• PBCC partnered with NIFA NRSP10 and NSF PGRP projects (PI: Dorrie Main) to develop and deploy a U.S. public sector breeding capacity survey. Funding from the two partner projects enabled to the survey expertise of Michael Coe (Cedar Lake Research Group) and the development of a database support with on-line accessibility https://www.nrsp10.org/pbcc-survey-geomap
• Initial analysis of the completed surveys revealed 289 crop programs representing breeding research, germplasm enhancement and/or variety development.
• Publication of the review paper ‘Sustaining the Future of Plant Breeding: The Critical Role of the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System.’ P.F. Byrne, G.M. Volk, C. Gardner, M. A. Gore, P.W. Simon, and S. Smith. 2018. Crop Science 58:451–468. Funding of $1,000 was received from the National Association of Plant Breeders to publish this as an Open Access paper.
• A grant for $41,500 was received from USDA-NIFA-AFRI for the proposal ‘Planning Conference to Develop Strategies for Training the Next Generation of U.S. Plant Genebank Managers’ (Co-PI’s P. Byrne and G. Volk). The grant resulted in the Plant Genebank Training Workshop, (http://genebanktraining.colostate.edu/index.html), April 24-26, 2018, in Fort Collins, CO, bringing together 33 experts from U.S. and international genebanks, land grant universities, the seed industry, and a botanical garden. Attendees agreed on the need for a diverse array of training materials, including videos, online courses, webinars, and face to face workshops.
• An immediate outcome of the above-mentioned workshop was a proposal to the USDA-NIFA Higher Education Challenge Grant Program to conduct detailed planning for a genebank management program. This planning phase would last one year and would ideally lead to submission of a full three-year proposal to implement the training program.
• Bill Tracy represented PBCC at the NPGCC meeting in May, Sturgeon Bay WI.
• Core outcome/concept/learning objective lists were generated for all eight Iowa State University MS Plant Breeding courses.
• PBCC partnered with Cornell’s Alliance for Science to conduct a science communication for plant science workshop for over 30 graduate students and post-docs, titled “Speaking Science”, (http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2018/07/workshop-trains-plant-scientists-communicate-science). Each student had a discrete output in the form of an interview with a journalist (print/radio), a blog, an op-ed piece, a podcast, or a video, which have been made public on the PBCC website. One example is the work of Saarah Kuzay (UC Davis plant breeding PhD candidate), featured by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (https://www.aaas.org/blog/public-engagement-reflections/sharing-science-through-storytelling).
• A series of worksheets on plant breeding communication were created to help breeders 1) How to write a blog on your research, 2) How to message your research, 3) Tips for speaking to non-scientific audiences, and 4) The Audience Factor: Tips to remove tension. These were available as handouts at the NAPB and PBCC meetings and are available on the PBCC website.