Source: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS submitted to NRP
TRAINING NEW PLANT BREEDING LEADERS FOR A CHANGING WORLD
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1006797
Grant No.
2015-38420-23756
Cumulative Award Amt.
$241,000.00
Proposal No.
2014-10397
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Jul 15, 2015
Project End Date
Jul 14, 2020
Grant Year
2015
Program Code
[KK]- National Needs Graduate Fellowships Program
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
410 MRAK HALL
DAVIS,CA 95616-8671
Performing Department
Plant Sciences
Non Technical Summary
This program is designed to train four graduate students in plant breeding, providing them with a diverse set of skills to be successful in the seed industry or in the public research sector. Our goal is to give students a strong background in research but also to give them opportunities to interact with a diverse group of public and private sector plant breeders during their degree program. We will emphasize communication skills by having students present research at scientific conferences, to peers at the university, and to the general public through extension activities. The result will be a cadre of students well prepared to become leaders in the plant breeding field, so that they can help develop healtier, more productive crops.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
2012410108150%
2022410108150%
Knowledge Area
202 - Plant Genetic Resources; 201 - Plant Genome, Genetics, and Genetic Mechanisms;

Subject Of Investigation
2410 - Cross-commodity research--multiple crops;

Field Of Science
1081 - Breeding;
Goals / Objectives
The overarching goal of this National Needs Fellowship program is to provide 2 MS and 2 PhD graduate students with a comprehensive plant breeding education preparing them for careers as leaders in the seed industry or the public sector.
Project Methods
Mentoring of the Fellows will begin from the time they are recruited and will include specialized Transition workshops targeted to underrepresented minority students, directly engaging with individual faculty members, and oversight by the PD. We will enhance our plant breeding curriculum with hands-on activites for the Fellows, and provide Fellows with opportunities for internships with the seed industry. We will provide focused networking opportunities for the Fellows with representatives from industry. We will assess the students' progress throughout the program with assistance from the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at UC Davis.

Progress 07/15/15 to 07/14/20

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this project is the four fellows we recruited to our graduate program, and more generally, other graduate students who benefit from working with these students and from curriculur improvements we made in response to these fellows. The work these fellows did both in research and teaching was also of interest to their specific crop commodities and to the scientific community. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?NNF Fellows had opportunities to attend numerous conferences, listed below with the number of NNF Fellows attending in parentheses. (Number students) American Seed Trade Association Vegetable & Flower Seed Conference 2020 (1) Cereals & Grains Association,Milling& Baking Division, Spring TechnicalConference 2019 (1) Organic Seed Growers Conference - 2020 (1) Plant and Animal Genome - 2017 (1), 2018 (2), 2019 (1), 2020 (1) UC Davis Plant Breeding Center Retreat - 2017 (3), 2018 (3), 2019 (3) UC Davis Plant Science Symposium - 2018 (2); 2019 (2); 2020 (1) Other training opportunities taken by an NNF Fellow: Program Management for Plant Breeders short course atUCDavis onSeptember 18 - 20, 2018 How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?All four Fellows had numerous opportunities to interact with other students, with farmers, or with industry personnel during their programs. Two students made yearly presentations at field days for beans and wheat. Our MS student visited spinach growers with Farm Advisors to view on-farm trials. Three students were involved in organizing and presenting information at yearly field days as part of the SCOPE project as student leaders. Fellows had opportunities to present their research and other informationin various seminars on campus and occasional invited talks. Gibson, K."Insect Identification Workshop"SCOPE Seminar,UCDavis (August 20, 2019) Gibson, K."Organic Agriculture: History, Current Regulations, and Prevalence" SCOPE Seminar,UCDavis (September 10, 2019) Gibson, K."Culinary Uses of Lima Bean." SCOPE Seminar,UCDavis (May 6, 2020) Gibson, K."Lygus on Lima Beans: Past and Current Research into the Tolerance ofLygushesperusinPhaseoluslunatus."Seminar delivered to the Department of Plant Sciences,UniversitàPolitecnicaDelleMarcheinAncona, Italy (March 28, 2018) Groh, A. Wild tomatoes to improve water use efficiency. HRT290 Seminar (November 14, 2019) In addition, one Fellow became co-coordinator for "CA Wheat Capacity Building Project" and collaborator on the development of the Golden State Grains Initiative (www.goldenstategrains.com) led by the California Wheat Commission. March 2019 - present. Some additional outreach activities by one of the fellows are as follows: Authored AAAS Blog Post "Sharing Science through storytelling"; Link: https://www.aaas.org/sharing-science-through-storytelling Interview for Seed World podcast, "Enter the World of Wheat"; Link: https://seedworld.com/enter-the-world-of-wheat-with-4-napb-borlaug-scholars/ Interview for Talking Biotech podcast "176 -Early Career Scientists - Research and Communication"; Link: http://www.talkingbiotechpodcast.com/176-early-career-scientists-research-and-communication/ What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We admitted four students, 2 MS and 2 PhD, to the program. All four students are women, who are underrepresented in the professional plant breeding fields both in academia and in the private sector. One of the MS students completed her degree in 2018 and is now employed in the seed industry as a plant breeder for High Fidelity Genetics. The other MS student transitioned her program to a PhD after her second year funded by the NNF grant. Consequently, we have three PhD students who are in their last phases of their graduate careers. All three of the PhD students will likely complete their degrees in 2021, although there is some uncertainty as the effects of the pandemic work themselves out. The four NNF scholars were mentored by five UC Davis faculty members (one student had two co-major advisors) and studied four different crops - tomato, bean, spinach, and wheat. A major goal of the NNF project was to prepare students for careers in the seed industry or as public breeders. Toward that end, the PhD students were required to participate in an internship of some kind. All three PhD students chose to participate in a program at UC Davis called SCOPE, in which students develop and run breeding programs designed to develop cultivars for organic systems. In the spirit of their NNF goal to become leaders in plant breeding, all three PhD students became the leaders of one of the crop breeding teams during their tenure. One student let the lima bean team for her entire graduate career, one led the tomato team for one year, and the third student led both the pepper breeding team and is currently the lead student on the wheat breeding team. Through their work on SCOPE, the students demonstrated leadership skills from making decisions on breeding program management as well as directed other graduate and undergraduate students. Further, students had opportunities through other projects to get leadership activity, including as Lead Student Coordinator of Graduate Student Presentations and Plant Breeding Training for the Wheat Cooperative Agricultural Project in 2019-2020 and as Student Organizers for Corteva's Annual Plant Sciences Symposium at UC Davis in 2018 and 2019. As a cohort, the Fellows forged solid bonds that will serve them well when they move to careers post-graduate school. As one of the fellows said: "we helped each other study for our QEs [Qualifying Exams], we practiced our QE proposals and questions, we often got together and talked about plant breeding, we told each other about opportunities we saw, encouraged each other to do volunteer opportunities related to ag, and lots more! [The other fellows] have been a great support system and have enhanced my graduate school experience personally, academically, and professionally."

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Kuzay, S., Xu, Y., Zhang, J. et al. Identification of a candidate gene for a QTL for spikelet number per spike on wheat chromosome arm 7AL by high-resolution genetic mapping. Theor Appl Genet 132, 26892705 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-019-03382-5
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Kuzay, S, Hamilton-Conaty, P, Palkovic, A, Gepts, P. Is the USDA core collection of common bean representative of genetic diversity of the species, as assessed by SNP diversity? Crop Science. 2020; 60: 13981414. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20032
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Greenhut, R. 2018. Developing baby leaf spinach with reduced cadmium accumulation. M.S. Thesis. University of California, Davis.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Groh, A. 2018. Exploiting wild tomato germplasm for water stress tolerance. UC Davis Plant Breeding Center Retreat, Monterey, CA. Dec 17-18, 2018
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Kuzay, S. et al., 2019. High-resolution genetic mapping and haplotype analysis revealed a floral meristem candidate gene that affects yield components in wheat. National Association of Plant Breeders Conference, Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia. Aug 25-29, 2019
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Kuzay, S. 2019. Plant Breeding Education. UC Davis Plant Breeding Retreat, Bodega Marine Laboratory, Bodega Bay, CA. Dec 16-17, 2019
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Greenhut, R. et al. 2018. Breeding for low cadmium uptake in baby leaf spinach. Plant and Animal Genome, San Diego, CA. Jan 13-17, 2018
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Greenhut, R. et al. 2017. Developing baby leaf spinach with lower cadmium uptake. National Association of Plant Breeders Conference. Davis, CA. August 7-10, 2017.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Groh, A. et al. 2020. Water Stress Tolerance in Wild Tomato: Exploring the Genetic Basis for Potential Use in Breeding. ASTA 59th Vegetable & Flower Seed Conference, Monterey, CA, 2-4 February 2020.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Kuzay, S. 2018. Positional Cloning of 7AL QTL for Number of Spikelets per Spike in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). UC Davis Plant Breeding Center Retreat, Monterey, CA. Dec 17-18, 2018
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2017 Citation: Kuzay, S. 2017. Introduction to the SCOPE: Student Collaborative Organic Plant breeding & Education project at UC Davis. UC Davis Plant Breeding Retreat, Bodega Marine Laboratory , Bodega Bay, CA. Dec 18-19, 2017
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Kuzay, S. et al., 2020. Identification of a candidate gene for a QTL for spikelet number on wheat chromosome arm 7AL by high resolution genetic mapping. Plant and Animal Genome, San Diego, CA. Jan 11-15, 2020
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Kuzay, S. et al. 2019. Positional Cloning of QTL on Chr 7A for Number of Spikelets per Spike in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Plant and Animal Genome, San Diego, CA. Jan 12-16, 2019
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Kuzay, S. et al. 2018. Fine Mapping of QTL on Chr 7A for Number of Spikelets per Spike in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Plant and Animal Genome, San Diego, CA. Jan 13-17, 2018
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Kuzay, S. et al. 2017. Identification and Mapping of QTL for Number of Spikelets per Spike in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Plant and Animal Genome, San Diego, CA. Jan 14-18, 2017
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Gibson, K., et al. 2018. Tolerance of Lygus hersperus in Lima Bean (Phaseolus lunatus). UC Davis Plant Breeding Center Retreat, Monterey, California (December 17, 2018)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Gibson, K., et al. 2018. Understanding Lygus Tolerance in Phaseolus lunatus: How do timing and plant characteristics affect Lygus presence? UC Davis Plant Sciences Symposium (April 16, 2018)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Gibson, K., et al. 2017. The pursuit of Lygus resistance/tolerance in Phaseolus lunatus: Can Volatile Organic Compounds provide a solution? National Association of Plant Breeders, Davis, CA. (August 7-10, 2017)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2017 Citation: Gibson, K., et al. 2017. The pursuit of Lygus resistance/tolerance in Phaseolus lunatus: Can Volatile Organic Compounds provide a solution? International Heteroptera Symposium, Seaside, CA (April 18-20, 2017)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Kuzay, S. 2019. reeding for Organic Systems and Artisan Wheat using Heritage and Modern Varieties. Cereals & Grains Association, Milling & Baking Division, Spring Technical Conference, Holiday Inn Austin Town Lake, Austin, TX, April 17-19, 2019


Progress 07/15/15 to 07/14/16

Outputs
Target Audience:We attempted to reach undergraduates, especially from underserved minorities, who were interested in plant breeding for graduate school. We advertised our National Needs Graduate Fellowships in various ways, through career sites at the Crop Science Society of America and other societies, directly to key faculty at undergraduate colleges and universities including Fresno State University, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, and Sacramento State University, and through social media from the UC Davis Plant Breeding Center and Plant Sciences Department. Changes/Problems:We had hoped to be able to attract at least one Hispanic student to the program, but we had very few applications from Hispanic students, and only one was offered admission to the program. As he had gotten his BS degree at Davis, he ultimately decided to move to Wisconsin for his PhD. Otherwise, the program is moving forward as proposed. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This grant has provided funding for four students who otherwise would not have been able to join the UC Davis plant breeding community this year. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The students will begin their graduate careers in September 2016. During this period, students will begin to take classes. Opportunities for fellows to interact with one another, with faculty, and with seed industry breeders will be offered during the year. Students will have opportunities to teach and conduct research.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The primary accomplishment of this time period was the identification of our four NNF scholars, who enrolled beginning fall quarter 2016. The four scholars include two PhD candidates and two MS candidates and all are in the Horticulture and Agronomy Graduate Group (HAGG), majoring in Plant Breeding. The students will be working on wheat, common bean, tomato, and spinach breeding and genetics projects. The four students are women, an underrepresented group in both academic and industry plant breeding organizations. Compared to all HAGG students who joined the HAGG group in 2016, the four NNF students had a higher mean undergraduate GPA (3.76 vs. 3.40), higher percentile on Verbal (83% vs. 66%) and Quantitative GRE (63% vs. 59%), and were more highly rated by the admissions committee (9.0 vs. 7.3 on a 10 point score).

Publications