Delta Farm Press Logo

Seed breeding has seen a quantum leapSeed breeding has seen a quantum leap

I don’t think sci-fi writers could have imagined the changes that are now commonplace in plant breeding.

Brent Murphree, Senior Editor

February 2, 2021

2 Min Read
DFP25-seedplots-brentmurphree.JPG
Cotton seed variety plots in the Western U.S.Brent Murphree

I've always been fascinated by plant breeding. At the age of nine I learned about how insects pollinated flowers for a 4-H entomology project.  

Visions of freakish plants with which I could impress friends and family filled my head. Most of my fiddling around ended when my short attention span went on to different, shinier things. 

Dad managed the university demonstration farm just north of our place. Cotton breeders spent days in the field hunched over making crosses hoping to find one they could use in commercial production. 

That activity soon moved over to our place when several companies approached Dad because they wanted more land for their research.  We ended up with breeding plots for three different seed companies and housing a regional seed nursery on our place. 

It was an exciting time. Transgenic cotton was in the early development stage and at one point we had to have security on the farm in case an anti-transgenic warrior decided to do some damage to the facility. 

Through various sources I had access to some old conventional cotton varieties I planted on the side of my house and tried to cross. I had seed from native wild cotton, a purple-leafed variety from China, colored cotton from a failed commercial enterprise and a couple old traditional varieties someone gave me from their desk drawer. 

I never even got close to evaluating anything I grew, but it was fun before, once again, I found something shinier to do.  

When I worked for the national cotton organizations, I was able to get into research plots from California to the Carolinas. It has been fun to hear about the new developments and some of the fine tuning of new varieties. 

With each new development – herbicide tolerance, additional Bt genes, lygus and thrips protection – it has been like seeing a new car go on the market and being privy to all the new features. 

A couple of years ago I got into the middle of a discussion on disease resistance in cotton when the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Vasinfectum was discovered in a field in the El Paso Valley. It was nice because I could maintain a fluid conversation and even write an article about the subject while understanding what the Ph.D.s were saying. 

It has been amazing to experience the quantum change in plant science that has taken place in the last 30 years – transgenics, CRISPR. I don't think sci-fi writers could have imagined the changes that are now commonplace in plant breeding. 

Most of all I like the characters I've met in the field. Guys like Larry Burdett and Carl Feaster who are no longer with us. Fred Bourland, Jeff Klingenberg, Jinfa Zhang, Jim Olvey and many others are still out there on the hot days, hunched over, making crosses. 

About the Author

Brent Murphree

Senior Editor, Delta Farm Press

Brent Murphree grew up on a third-generation Arizona cotton farm and has been in ag communications for well over 25 years. He received his journalism degree from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. He was a partner in the family farm, which grew cotton, wheat, alfalfa and pistachios. Urban encroachment in the fast-growing Phoenix metropolitan area was the impetus for closing the farm operation.

He received two Arizona Newspaper Association awards while at Kramer Communications in Casa Grande, Ariz., and was editor of their Pinal Ways magazine. He has served as a municipal public information officer and has worked as a communications director for the cotton industry, writing for industry publications. He was vice mayor of the town of Maricopa, which he helped incorporate, for seven years, having established and organized several community organizations in the process. His small hometown has grown from several hundred people to over 60,000 in just over 20 years.

Brent joined Farm Press in 2019 as content director for Southwest Farm Press and Western Farm Press. He became editor of Delta Farm Press in October of 2020.

Subscribe to receive top agriculture news
Be informed daily with these free e-newsletters

You May Also Like