Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Project: SCC 80 Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee (PBCC)

Project title: Strengthening the Public Plant Breeding Community

Administrative Advisor: Dr. Amir M. Ibrahim

Period covered: May 20, 2025, to June 16, 2026

Annual meeting: June 15, 2026

Date submitted: July 30, 2026

Appendix I

2025-2026 PBCC Annual Meeting Minutes

PBCC 2026 Annual Meeting

Date: Monday, June 15, 2026

Time: 12:30-1:15pm CT

Location: NAPB meeting, College Station, TX

Facilitator: Dr. Juan Arbelaez, outgoing PBCC Chair

1.         Welcome and opening

Juan opened the meeting with an introduction to the PBCC mission and objectives for attendees joining the annual meeting.

2.         Committee updates

SCC-80 Renewal. Jenny Koebernick reported that the SCC-80 multistate project, the administrative designation under which PBCC operates, was renewed for 2025 through 2030. State representatives are required to register for the renewed project; registration for the previous iteration does not carry over. Juan noted that several states currently lack a PBCC representative and requested that attendees share contacts for potential representatives in those states.

Secretary Transition. Dr. Manoj Sapkota (University of Kentucky) was confirmed as the incoming PBCC secretary.

Resource and Practices Survey. The survey committee has completed analysis of the 2023 breeding practices survey data and is preparing a manuscript, supporting PBCC’s long-term monitoring of public breeding program resources.

Best Practices Workshop Paper. The paper resulting from the 2024 best practices workshop, led by Mikey Kantar and Iago Hale, was published in Crop Science in 2025 (Hale et al., 2025; https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70094).

AgInnovation South Initiative. Juan provided an update on PBCC’s ongoing collaboration with the AgInnovation South, the association of southern U.S. agricultural experiment station directors, on its initiative, "Sustaining Public Plant Breeding Programs," which addresses succession planning and continuity as public breeders approach retirement. PBCC submitted a letter of support for this initiative in March 2026, drawing on findings from its 2025 Crop Science publication on breeder transitions. The AgInnovation South team has since developed a breeder survey, informed by PBCC’s prior one-page summary, covering program description, revenue streams, germplasm facilities, and anticipated risks if individual breeding programs are discontinued. The PBCC EC is refining the questions for broader applicability across regions.

Education Committee. Martin Bohn and the education team continue work on the core concepts document. Thomas Lübberstedt reported that a survey of employers is the next planned activity and will be distributed to PBCC state representatives.

Communications. Trevor Rife reported that a new PBCC website is live and easier to update and maintain than the previous site (www.plantbreeding.cc). New comic issues, covering turfgrass and barley, are available at the PBCC booth.

3.         Initiative Funding Framework

Juan reviewed the current PBCC framework, in which subcommittees develop discrete initiatives following a scope, workshop, and paper progression, as used in 2024 for the “Germplasm Transitions” initiative. At the 2025 annual meeting, a new initiative on tenure evaluation was proposed. Juan reported that USDA NIFA no longer supports stand-alone conference or workshop grants under the AFRI program area historically used by PBCC (A1141). Allen Van Deynze reported that some NAPB workshops have been funded under A1141 but require a specific programmatic connection. Ksenija Gasic suggested that future workshop topics could be adapted to fit available funding mechanisms, provided the proposal includes a clear output. The committee raised several open questions for further discussion, including how to fund future workshops and associated activities, whether to return to a subcommittee-based model, and whether a hybrid approach might be appropriate.

4.         Breakout discussion: Future Initiatives

Attendees divided into small groups to discuss potential future initiatives. Thomas noted that any initiative requires a champion, regardless of topic. The group reviewed cost considerations, noting that the 2024 workshop in St. Louis cost approximately $15,000. PBCC’s approximately $6,000 annual allocation could offset part of this cost. The larger sum from the St. Louis workshop budget was used to support external participants and expand participant diversity, but future workshops could forego this and rely on participation from state representatives or individuals already planning to attend NAPB. The group emphasized that any resulting white paper should have a clearly defined audience and raised the question of whether NIFA AFRI program area A1143 supports conference grants.

Framing recommendations from the discussion included the following: emphasize how public breeding programs support cultivar development and release; present initiatives as a direct benefit to stakeholders; build incentive structures that recognize cultivar release as central to the faculty role; keep both federal funding agencies and university administration audiences in mind when framing proposals; and provide a clear, non-hedged description of scientific impact.

The group also discussed logistics for a future workshop, suggesting that it be organized to coincide with the first day of the NAPB meeting, concurrent with student workshops, with the goal of increasing industry attendance.

5.         Leadership Transition

This meeting marked Juan’s final meeting as PBCC chair. Marta Pudzianowska will assume the role of chair for 2026-2027.

6.         Action Items

·       Attendees will share contacts for states currently lacking a PBCC representative to the EC for follow up.

·       The Education Committee will distribute the employer survey to PBCC state representatives.

·       The committee will determine whether to pursue a subcommittee-based model, the current initiative-based model, or a hybrid approach for future work, and will identify funding mechanisms for future workshops. The committee will consider organizing a future workshop concurrent with the first day of the NAPB meeting to align with student workshops and encourage industry attendance.

·       Interested members will identify a champion and scope for any new initiative proposed for the coming year.

Appendix: Attendees

1.     Juan Abelaez Velez

2.     Jim McFerson

3.     Marta Pudzianowska

4.     Thomas Lübberstedt

5.     Neha Kothari

6.     Ksenija Gasic

7.     Shelby Ellison

8.     Allen Van Deynze

9.     Jenny Koebernick

10.   Jenna Hershberger

11.   Trevor Rife

12.   Mikey Kantar

13.   Manoj Sapkota

14.   Kate Evans

15.   David Francis

16.   Neil Anderson

17.   Per McCord

18.   Mario Andrade

19.   Jakir Hasan

Project: SCC 80 Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee (PBCC)

Project title: Strengthening the Public Plant Breeding Community

Administrative Advisor: Dr. Amir M. Ibrahim

Period covered: May 20, 2025, to June 16, 2026

Annual meeting: June 15, 2026

Date submitted: July 30, 2026

Accomplishments (May 20, 2025–June 16, 2026)

●      A Seed World Podcast. A Seed World podcast (see this link) featuring future PBCC Chair Dr. Juan Arbelaez Velez was published on May 22, 2025. The interview discussed the future direction of PBCC and how the committee can best support U.S. public plant breeding.

●      Publication on public plant breeding program transitions. A study led by PBCC Executive Committee members Dr. Michael Kantar and Dr. Iago Hale, Sustaining Public Plant Breeding Programs Across Generations, was published in Crop Science on June 11, 2025. The manuscript reports the findings of a PBCC workshop that identified practices to support successful program transitions, prevent germplasm loss, and ensure continuity of public plant breeding programs.

o   Citation: Hale, I., Koebernick, J., Hershberger, J., Rife, T., Arbelaez, J.-D., Anderson, N., Bekkerman, A., Bohn, M., Bourland, F., Burke, T., Chee, P., Evans, K., Fumia, N., Feldmann, M., Gasic, K., Hague, S., Heilman-Morales, A. M., Kemp, A. H., Iglesias, C., Muller L., Luby J., Pratt R., Thompson A., Vierling R., Worthington M., Smith M., Volk G., Wolfe M., and Kantar, M. (2025). Sustaining public plant breeding programs across generations. Crop Science, 65, e70094. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70094. 

●      PBCC & agInnovation South collaboration on germplasm transition and maintenance. Since December 2025, PBCC and agInnovation South have collaborated to develop best practices for public plant breeder succession planning. Dr. Gary Thompson, Executive Director of agInnovation South, together with several Southern Experiment Station Directors, developed a draft succession framework consisting of three components:

o   Germplasm Protection Plan: Documents procedures for backing up germplasm at an independent location to safeguard genetic resources and intellectual property in the event of natural or human-caused disasters.

o   Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Documents breeding operations and supporting activities to provide new faculty with guidance on program history, current status, and operational workflows.

o   Breeder Transition Plan: Outlines the process for transferring breeding programs following a breeder's retirement or departure.

PBCC will contribute to the development of publicly available SOPs for germplasm transition and maintenance that can be adopted by public plant breeding programs across the United States. This initiative supports the SCC80 Best Practices objective by promoting continuity of breeding programs and reducing the risk of germplasm loss. The collaboration will continue during the next reporting cycle as a PBCC priority.

●      Renewal of the SCC80 Multistate Research Coordinating Committee. Under the leadership of former PBCC Chair Dr. Jenny Koebernick, SCC80 was renewed for an additional five-year period (October 1, 2025–September 30, 2030) under the title Strengthening the Public Plant Breeding Community. The renewed project is organized around four objectives:

o   Resource Analyses: Collect, analyze, and disseminate information on the evolving capacity, scope, impact, and needs of U.S. public plant breeding programs.

o   Best Practices: Develop and promote individual, programmatic, and institutional best practices related to data, personnel, intellectual property, program transitions, and breeding methods to ensure the long-term impact of public plant breeding.

o   Education: Track graduate plant breeding education capacity across U.S. public universities, identify gaps, and develop strategies to strengthen teaching capacity.

o   Communication: Communicate the impacts and needs of public plant breeding to federal, state, and local agencies, LGU/SAES administrators, and the broader public.

●      Launch of the new PBCC website. A new PBCC website (https://plantbreeding.cc/) was launched in March 2026. Developed by PBCC Executive Committee member Dr. Trevor Rife using GitHub Pages, the website provides a low-cost, easy-to-maintain platform that can be readily transferred as committee leadership changes. The site includes information on PBCC state representatives, committee leadership and structure, research supporting the PBCC mission and objectives, Plant Breeding Success Comic Stories, and a directory of U.S. public plant breeding programs. The website serves as the committee's primary platform for communicating activities, accomplishments, and future initiatives to members and stakeholders.

●      Plant Breeding Educational Core Concepts. Progress continued on the development of the Plant Breeding Educational Core Concepts. PBCC member Martin Bohn, together with Thomas Lübberstedt, Valerio Hoyos-Vanegas, and collaborators, developed a draft document describing nine core concepts that organize fundamental plant breeding knowledge for graduate education. The proposed concepts include Societal Impact, Quantitative Methods, Population and Quantitative Genetics, Genetic Variation, Selection Theory, Genotype × Environment Interactions, Crop Biology, Breeding Methods and Technologies, and Genome Biology and Biotechnology. Together, these concepts provide a framework for developing educational assessments and evaluating student learning. On February 2, 2026, the draft document was distributed to the plant breeding community for review. Feedback will be incorporated into a survey and used to refine the final document.

●      Analysis of the 2023 Survey of U.S. Public Plant Breeding Capacity. Analysis of the 2023 survey was completed in May 2026. Conducted every five years, the survey evaluates the capacity of U.S. public plant breeding programs to meet current and future societal needs. It assesses resource allocation, including personnel time, financial resources, and local, state, and federal support, to identify common challenges facing public plant breeding programs. The previous survey was completed in 2018, and its findings were published in Crop Science (Coe et al. 2020). PBCC Executive Committee member Dr. Kate Evans will lead the interpretation of the 2023 survey results and preparation of a manuscript comparing findings from the 2023 and 2018 surveys.

●      SCC80 Impact Statement. On June 5, 2026, Sara Delheimer, Program Coordinator for the Multistate Research Impacts Program, completed the final draft of the SCC80 Impact Statement. The statement describes the PBCC mission, objectives, and importance, and will be used to communicate the committee's impact and activities to universities and other stakeholders.

●      Plant Breeding Success Comic Stories. Two new Plant Breeding Success Comic Stories were released during the NAPB Annual Meeting at Texas A&M University on June 16, 2026. One story highlights the development and release of drought-tolerant turfgrass varieties through a multistate collaboration among six southern states. The second features the Oregon Wolfe Barley population as an educational resource for teaching plant genetics and breeding. Both stories are available on the PBCC Outreach webpage (https://plantbreeding.cc/outreach).

●      PBCC leadership transition. Dr. Manoj Sapkota, Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky, was elected PBCC Secretary. The current Executive Committee consists of Dr. Marta Pudzianowska (Chair), Dr. Jenna Hershberger (Vice-Chair), Dr. Manoj Sapkota (Secretary), and Dr. Juan Arbelaez Velez (Past Chair).

None to report during this cycle

Hale, I., Koebernick, J., Hershberger, J., Rife, T., Arbelaez, J.-D., Anderson, N., Bekkerman, A., Bohn, M., Bourland, F., Burke, T., Chee, P., Evans, K., Fumia, N., Feldmann, M., Gasic, K., Hague, S., Heilman-Morales, A. M., Kemp, A. H., Iglesias, C., Muller L., Luby J., Pratt R., Thompson A., Vierling R., Worthington M., Smith M., Volk G., Wolfe M., and Kantar, M. (2025). Sustaining public plant breeding programs across generations. Crop Science, 65, e70094. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70094.