2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Plant breeding has been a central part of the Land Grant Mission for more than 150 years. Over the last 25 years there has been a decline in public sector plant breeding efforts. Causes of this erosion are varied, but in order to revitalize, public plant breeding institutions need to describe the features of successful and viable programs across the country. As funding models and markets change, the public sector needs to adapt and defining how capacity has changed is central to the public sector maintaining its social contract and helping to ensure food, nutrition and environmental security into the future.

The Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee (SCC-80) surveyed public plant breeding programs in 2018 to gauge current capacity and understand the challenges public plant breeding faces. Funded by USDA NIFA and NSF PGRP, a standard survey instrument was created and implemented in the NRSP10 database that can be reused every five years to create a time series to understand ongoing changes in capacity and inform US agriculture policy. A total of 287 U.S. public plant breeding programs provided data, representing programs located in 44 states. To complement the survey, NRSP10 hosts a searchable and interactive US map showing participating public plant breeding programs (https://www.nrsp10.org/). Here we present programs registered with the NRSP10, state by state, delineated by crop group and addressing three major categories of selective plant breeding activities: plant breeding research, germplasm enhancement, and variety development.