Early days for Germinal Seeds’ NZ breeding programme

“Everyone laughs because I always say I like straight lines. But in research, you’re always trying to reduce variables and get really good data sets, so straight lines really help,” she says.

She’s been with Germinal for the past year and is enjoying the responsibility for guiding the company’s plant breeding strategy for NZ, including testing cultivars developed by the company’s large breeding and research team at Germinal’s site at Aberystwyth in Wales.

Her journey to plant breeding in New Zealand started during an industry placement year with agrichemical company BASF while she was studying for her Bachelor of Science degree in England.

It was during her placement year based in East Anglia that she met her New Zealand-born husband who was doing grain and seed harvest work while travelling overseas. 

They shifted to NZ in the early 2000s and Fiona joined PGG Seeds as an agronomist, staying for three years before the couple returned to the UK. Agronomy roles were scarce in Scotland she says, so after starting a family she retrained in primary education.

“What I got from that change in career is I’m a person who likes to plan and prepare, so honing my skills in that has proved useful in my future roles back in plant breeding.”

The couple and their children moved back to NZ in 2013 and she began working for PGG Wrightson Seeds as an agronomist, progressing to Technical Manager then Product Development Manager, before moving to Germinal as the company’s NZ plant breeding and trials manager.

Fiona says the main attraction to the role with Germinal was the chance to establish a plant research programme in New Zealand from scratch.

“I’ve worked in research programmes over a number of years, but I’ve never been there from the very start up at a research station.”

Germinal purchased land two years ago and the first set of trials were planted in 2023.

Some of her work involves screening a range of mostly high sugar ryegrass cultivars from Germinal in UK, but she is also building a New Zealand plant breeding programme starting from a base population of NZ and overseas stock.

“We’re looking at a number of plots now that we’re assessing for yield and that will dictate what we actually continue to breed as our own cultivars.

“Productivity or yield is important, but we  are also looking at quality because that brings that sustainability piece in as well.“

Her role is varied and broadly follows the seasonal requirements of a plant breeding site, from doing research on a particular trial, scoring plants for disease, taking samples for testing a range of quality traits, through to harvesting a trial plot and writing up reports.

“I’m also a member of the forage technical committee for the National Forage Variety Trials, organised by the Plant Breeders & Research Association, and I’m on the endophyte technical committee so there are regular meetings and commitments to meet for that.”

“I’m quite lucky because I’ve got a combination of operational and a bit of the strategic in my role.

“But what I really like the most is having my boots on the ground. I like being in the technical space because I think it’s the way that you can keep your eye on things and understand how things are going.”

Science and computer power are delivering some benefits but Fiona says there are no shortcuts in plant breeding. Early stage plant selection usually involves tedious harvesting of seed from individual plants.

She’s pleased with the investment Germinal has made in land and infrastructure to continue its plant breeding efforts here in New Zealand. 

“It‘s about investing for the future, and that’s why Germinal purchased its own block of land. I’m fortunate to have the backing of the research team back in the UK, it definitely is a team effort.”

Fiona says breeding plants that cope better with climate change or mitigate its impacts is a regular topic of conversation among researchers and plant breeders.

But continued effort to produce high yielding, quality forage cultivars is still a high priority.

Fiona is attending this month’s Women in Seed forum in Christchurch on May 21 to hear a range of speakers on a variety of topics including science, innovation and climate change.

For more information on the forum, organised by the Grain & Seed Trade Association Inc, visit https://www.nzgsta.co.nz/women-in-seed-forum-2024/