In Nebraska, we will 1) provide field tours of the drought tolerance screening and testing nurseries to visiting public and proprietary breeders, 2) work with the instructors of graduate plant breeding classes who want to provide their students with in-field visual demonstrations of breeding programs for greater drought tolerance, and 3) exchange seed with public and private breeders via MTAs to encourage wider use of the germplasm.
In Arkansas, we will 1) Share germplasm and testing data with private breeders and encourage them to use our drought tolerant lines for crossing, and 2) Design cooperative tests and demonstration plots, encourage private breeders to participate in growing the tests.
In Minnesota, we will be sharing drought tolerant germplasm with the public breeding program at South Dakota State University as well as the notes above about sharing with the private sector.
In Georgia, we will distribute QTL marker data to enable efficient industry transfer of slow wilting trait to elite varieties from PI 471938.
In North Carolina, will encourage private breeders to visit our Sandhills research station in August and pursue collaborative research.