PA W'21 Seminar Series

Overview:

TITLE: Advanced Crop Breeding
SPEAKER: Travis Coleman, NANE Evaluation Zone Lead, Corteva

LOCATION: Zoom (link available on request, please contact Dr. Francois Tardif )
TIME: 3:00 to 4:00 PM
DATE: Thursday, April 8th, 2021

Summary:
As in a diverse array of industries, scientific or otherwise, the interconnection of previously unavailable large datasets and analytical techniques is revolutionizing how we approach product development in the seed industry. Corteva Agriscience employs a model where plant breeders play a key role as developers and integrators of novel technology while anchoring new methodologies with historical germplasm knowledge and connections to market and customer needs. Rapid decreases in genotyping and sequencing costs, combined with advances in phenotyping methodology, and analytical techniques have recently come together as key enablers to predictive models that are changing traditional models of breeding. Global systems and networks can be increasingly leveraged to allow germplasm and data flow in an unprecedented way. During this seminar I will outline some of these advances in predictive breeding, the implications on product development, and discuss the future roles of research scientists in a rapidly evolving seed industry.
 

Biography:
Travis Coleman is the Corteva Agriscience Plant Breeding R&D Lead for the North America North East Evaluation Zone. He is responsible for leading a team focused on early corn hybrid product development in Eastern Canada and the United States and also runs an active corn breeding program. Travis is a proud graduate of the University of Guelph (Ph.D. Plant Agriculture) with a background in molecular genetics and plant breeding. He began his career with Corteva Agriscience (then DuPont Pioneer) in 2008 at Woodstock, Ontario before relocating to Lethbridge, Alberta to establish an ultra-early corn breeding program targeted at adoption of corn hybrids adapted to non-traditional growing areas in the western Canadian prairies. In 2019, Travis relocated back to Woodstock, Ontario to lead the Eastern corn R&D group. He is an inventor on over 20 corn inbred and hybrid patents in Canada and the US. Outside of work, Travis enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife and two daughters (particularly canoeing and camping), and fermenting anything that can’t be nailed down.