America’s seed industry has changed a lot over the decades, and since 1989, Roger Wippler has had a front-row seat to those developments as manager of the Foundation Seed Program of the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association.

Wippler retired in November, but he was recently awarded the Achievement in Crop Improvement Award during the MCIA annual meeting. The award is sponsored by The Farmer magazine.

“The advent of biotechnology certainly had a big impact on who we served,” Wippler told those at the meeting. “When Roundup Ready soybeans came to the marketplace, they were not available to the public universities for distribution through traditional certification, so MCIA members who wanted to utilize that genetic technology had to go to the private companies and get that material, produce it and distribute it under license agreements.”

The genetically modified crop movement saw the use of public soybean varieties decline, but Wippler said that opened opportunities in the Minnesota soybean breeding program, “putting a greater emphasis on specialty food-type soybeans. So, we started working with companies that grew food-grade soybeans. They were looking for non-GMO varieties because their customers required it. This has been an important part of the program.”

The number of seed species that Wippler worked with over the years is vast, though that has changed as Minnesota agriculture has evolved. During the recent MCIA annual meeting, Wippler presented his perspective on the past, present and future of the organization.

“It certainly has changed. As I was preparing for the meeting and looking back, a lot of the soybeans that were grown were from public universities and were grown by small seed producers and being distributed through local companies, area co-ops, seed houses,” he said. “When I look back, in 1989 there were over 900 applicants for field inspections that would cover 18 to 20 different crop types — everything from soybeans, corn, sunflowers, wheat, all the small grains, and throw in a few other crops like buckwheat and Kentucky bluegrass. So, the numbers have gone down in that regard, as private industry has taken on a larger and larger role in providing seed.”

Wippler acknowledged that the number of farms in Minnesota has also gone down over the years.

Small-grains head scab also led to a change in Minnesota cropping plans, as farmers who traditionally grew small grains switched to corn and soybeans.

“Back in ’89, we had close to 4.5 million acres of wheat, barley and oats,” he said, “and now in Minnesota, if we get to 1.5 [million], that might be stretching it. … The scab epidemic affected wheat and barley in ’93. Wheat rebounded, but barley never really did come back. Producers couldn’t get malting-quality price, and selling feed-grade barley didn’t make economic sense. So, after so many years of being rejected, they said, ‘Well, we’re just going to quit growing barley.’”

Wippler traveled the state visiting the foundation seed growers to see how the crops were performing in every corner of Minnesota, and he witnessed the cropping changes.

“When I first started, going to northwestern Minnesota and the Red River Valley, soybeans were relatively new, and beyond Moorhead, a cornfield was a rare sight. … Now, corn and soybeans are grown north to the Canadian border and west into North Dakota and western Canada,” he said.

Promotion satisfaction

While Wippler takes great pride in his work in the release of seed varieties over the years, he also is proud of the promotion of those releases.

“There was a time when a new variety would get released, and I talked to growers and asked, ‘How’s it going?’” Wippler said. “They’d say the variety did really well, but nobody knows about it.” To help get the word out, Wippler worked with the staff at the University of Minnesota Experiment Station to develop an informational campaign, “so we moved the timing of the press release announcing the new varieties from February to June so that coincided with field days, when people were out looking at plots.”

As with most people when they retire after a lengthy tenure, Wippler reflects on the people with whom he crossed paths, saying he may still visit growers throughout the season, but now more on a personal level. He relishes the collaboration over the years with growers, but also with U-MN plant breeding teams with whom he developed close relationships.

Though he was able to travel both domestically and internationally through his MCIA affiliation, he looks forward to traveling more leisurely with his wife, Cindy, who also worked at MCIA.

Seeds will not be left behind in Wippler’s retirement, as he hopes to volunteer more as a U-MN Master Gardener while also tending the “big garden” at his family’s hobby farm near Randall in Morrison County, Minn.