Show Notes
We celebrate the 100th year anniversary of Pioneer Seeds, and take a look back at the history of hybridization. The process may seem simple: to take two varieties or even species and cross them together to create more desirable offspring. But the concept of controlled hybridization, intentionally transferring pollen from a chosen male parent to a chosen female parent, is relatively new in the history of agriculture. But it has been nothing short of revolutionary.
This episode explores some of this history and poses questions like: what happened in the early 1900s with hybridization that opened the door for the formation of Pioneer and eventually the tremendous growth in yields over the past 100 years? What did adoption of hybrid corn look like in the early days and what can it teach us about adoption of new farm technologies today? Why has corn been the model for hybridization and what might still be possible for crops?
“Since 1926 our population has gone up by four times, from about two billion to eight billion (people). But the productivity of corn has gone up almost twelve times…Also, we've taken this technology, as Marc Albertsen has talked about, and we've used it for other crops and made them much more productive.” - Lance Gibson
We’re asking these questions and many others of three experts on today’s episode: Corteva Agriscience Agronomy Training Manager Dr. Lance Gibson, Saskatchewan farmer Corey Loessin and retired Pioneer employee Dr. Marc Albertsen, who was the first person hired in the newly formed biotechnology department at Pioneer in 1981, and went on to lead the agronomic traits group at the company.
A few takeaways from this episode: How much genetics generally and hybridization specifically has contributed to the incredible productivity increases from farmers in the past 100 years How the learnings from hybrid corn have translated into developing hybrids in other crops, and that we’re still in the very early days of realizing the benefits of hybrids in crops like wheat and canola. We still don’t fully understand heterosis. There are likely abundant opportunities to be discovered once scientists better understand this process.
Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
More from Agriscience Explained
Please send us your feedback on the podcast: [email protected] In this episode, we look back on the past 100 years, and highlight what will carry over into this next chapter in the company’s history. Corteva Agriscience chief technology and digital officer Sam Eathington and some really special guests discuss the past, present and future of agriscience innovation.
Dr. Carla Yerkes joins us to help us tell the story of Rinskor and explain the process of herbicide innovation and the persistence and creativity it takes to develop new solutions for farmers. Yerkes is a research biologist at Corteva Agriscience and has a Ph.D. in herbicide physiology. She has spent about half of her 30 year career in herbicide discovery research and the other half in herbicide trait discovery.
What is happening in agriscience today that we will be talking about 100 years from now? While it’s impossible to answer that question with certainty, there is a technology that has the potential to impact our industry in the next century as much or even more than hybridization changed the game over the past century. That technology is genome editing. The promise of this technology is very real and today you’re going to hear firsthand accounts of what changed in 2012 and 2013 to make all of this possible, what did it look like to test the technology in plant breeding, and what does the strategy look like to turn this science into better solutions.
In today’s episode, we’re following a molecule around the world, from being discovered in Japan to being developed in the United States to becoming a solution for farmers in the United Kingdom. Joining us is one of those farmers in the UK, Julian Gibbons. Julian has seen a variety of fungicide solutions come and go for important wheat diseases like Septoria tritici, or speckled leaf blotch. He’s really excited about the potential for a relatively newly registered product derived from a natural compound called Inatreq Active™. And the story of the need for Inatreq and the road to getting this product to farmers is the focus of today’s episode.
What does it take to break the world soybean yield record? Today we talk to soybean yield record-holder Alex Harrell and soybean breeder Don Kyle. Alex farms in southwest Georgia with his dad where they primarily grow soybeans, corn, wheat and watermelon. In 2023, he became the first farmer to record a soybean yield of over 200 bushels per acre. The next year he beat his own record coming in at 218.2856 bushels per acre. It’s an incredible achievement for anyone, but it’s even more impressive when you consider that Alex farms in an area that doesn’t generally grow a lot of soybeans. “ We did a lot of studying, a lot of class, made a lot of mistakes, and watched a lot of beans rot in our humidity. You know when the things do line up, we have a lot of yield potential there as well. ” - Alex Harrell Farmers like Alex have had to learn these lessons and refine their system over years while experimenting with and matching up the right genetics for their fields. Don Kyle became interested in soybean breeding in the early 90s and has since dedicated his career in plant breeding to the crop. Today he’s a soybean breeder and Evaluation Zone Lead for the Eastern US at Corteva Agriscience based in Princeton, Illinois. He says even though he’s focused on soybeans for over 30 years, he’s more passionate than ever about the crop. Don thinks we might see more hybrid soybeans in the future, similar to what we’re currently seeing with wheat. But for now, farmers aren’t using hybrid soybeans so it’s even more impressive what farmers like Alex Harrell have been able to achieve in terms of yield growth over the years. “ It's very easy to produce soybean seed because they self-pollinate themselves. The problem is to produce hybrid seed is really difficult. So making a cross between two different soybean varieties today still requires using tweezers and sometimes magnifying glasses so you could see the flower parts the best. It's a very tedious job.” - Don Kyle A few takeaways from this episode: