Pellow to Succeed Anderson as PhytoGen R&D Lead
January 9, 2015 John Pellow has been named the new PhytoGen global breeding leader for cotton at Dow AgroSciences, succeeding David Anderson, who is retiring this spring after an accomplished career in cotton breeding and genetic research at PhytoGen and Dow AgroSciences.
“David has done an amazing job bringing together innovative ways of developing cotton varieties while helping build and maintain a business,” said Pellow of his longtime colleague. “We’ll follow the streamlined model David established to quickly bring forward the next generation of industry leading, quality varieties with the latest yield protection traits for growers.”
Pellow – currently trait development leader at Dow AgroSciences – recently led the successful integration of new weed resistance traits in soybeans in North America and South America for Dow AgroSciences. Prior to that, he organized and strengthened the Mid-South cotton breeding program for PhytoGen and served as station leader for several years.
Pellow has also served the company as a trait integration manager in cotton, helping bring the WideStrike Insect Protection trait to market. He also released several successful Pima and Acala varieties for PhytoGen while working as cotton breeder in California.
“John has lived this journey with me,” Anderson says. “He’s been instrumental in developing the approaches that have made PhytoGen successful. He is perfectly positioned to move this company into the future, while maintaining our collegial atmosphere.”
Pellow and Anderson have worked together closely for more than 30 years, helping build the company that is now PhytoGen.
Anderson joined PhytoGen as its first scientist and as the molecular biology group following the completion of his postdoctoral work in 1980. He began laboratory activities for PhytoGen in early 1981.
“When we began operations, the challenges were enormous,” Anderson says. “There were no useful genes isolated for plants, no vectors to carry those genes into cotton plant cells, no selectable markers. Nor were there any proven methods to regenerate cotton plants from cells once transformation had been achieved.”
Inspired with some notions about transforming plants with isolated genes, Anderson began assembling a team of tissue culture scientists and molecular biologists equally challenged to solve significant problems facing cotton producers. Anderson also brought in famed H.B. Cooper – known as the “father of cotton breeding” in California – who gathered germplasm from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other breeder exchanges for the startup company.
From the inception of the cotton program, the mission of PhytoGen has been to improve the overall economics of cotton production. To achieve that, Anderson and his team set forth to become the industry’s preferred provider of new technology in high-yielding cultivars. In addition, the goal has been to yield fibers prized by mills for their spinning performance.
Anderson’s team assembled useful genes, promoters, gene constructs, transformation methods and regeneration protocols that created a broad capability in cotton. One of the PhytoGen team’s greatest successes was the invention of a glyphosate-resistant trait for cotton, for which Dow AgroSciences, through PhytoGen, is the patent holder.
“In my opinion, David Anderson is the Bill Gates of the cotton industry,” says Duane Canfield, portfolio marketing leader for PhytoGen cottonseed and traits. “First, David took on Pima cotton breeding and shattered yield limitations. He then did the same thing to Acala and has been instrumental in moving those high yield and quality expectations into the Upland cottonseed market.”
Anderson also established a unique development network where the breeding and commercial units closely work together to bring new products to market.
“I can say without fear of contradiction that we have always had great people to work with at PhytoGen,” Anderson says. “People who wanted to do a job rather than just have a job. They are innovative and motivated by the challenges we continue to face.”
PhytoGen was one of the first biotechnology companies to focus exclusively on plants and quickly moved to cotton as the primary crop focus, in large part because of the J.G. Boswell Company, the nation’s largest single cotton producer and ginner and the principal shareholder in PhytoGen at that time. The Boswell relationship provided PhytoGen access to farm managers and agronomists who possessed tremendous knowledge of cotton farming practices, agronomic challenges, diseases and pests, and the importance of fiber quality in driving output value.
“In the span of his amazing career and numerous accomplishments, David’s leadership has taken PhytoGen from zero to 20 percent market share,” Canfield says. “The people he’s trained and the standards he has established will continue with this company and with his successor.
David leaves us with a strong foundation for future success, and we know John is the right man to move us forward.”
Sources – Dow AgroSciences and PhytoGen
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