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Abnormal weather can impact spring plant breeding research

Many Midwestern farmers are struggling with saturated soils and delayed planting—and so are seed company researchers.

Devin Nichols is a corn breeder with Bayer in central Illinois. He tells Brownfield the trials they are doing now are for products that might not be released for several years.

“We will be testing in the same conditions that farmers are growing in this year, but how representative will that data be for the conditions that the products will actually experience in future years when they are commercialized?”

He says even with delayed planting, farmers in his area usually have a large harvest window, but there is less flexibility on the research side.

“Because we are trying to harvest those trials for data and then drive planting in our winter nursery sites off of that data to advance to the next generation and get seed back in time to plant next spring.”

Nichols says they constantly watch weather patterns so they can adapt their products to climate changes.