Continuing a Legacy of Breeding Excellence
September 1, 2015 From Cotton Grower Magazine – August/September 2015
Legacy is important to Lloyd May.
Not necessarily his personal legacy, mind you. But rather, respecting and continuing the work done over the past 100 or so years to create and maintain the Deltapine germplasm base.
“You want to remember the accomplishments of the people who came before you and their contributions in building what we have today,” said May, who is the cotton breeder at the Monsanto/Deltapine Breeding Station in Tifton, GA. “That’s the secret to our success today.
“Generations of breeders come along and inherit what the previous generation had created,” he added. “It’s up to us to leverage that and take it to the next level.”
May has spent the past 24 years working to push those levels ahead, in both the public and private sectors. He joined USDA-ARS in 1991 as a cotton breeder in Florence, SC, following post-doctorate work at Mississippi State University. Nine years later, he joined the University of Georgia-Tifton faculty as professor and cotton breeder. He’s been part of the Deltapine breeding program since 2005.
“Interestingly enough, this breeding station was founded by Curtis Williams, who was a famous soybean breeder for Hartz Seed before switching to cotton,” said May. “I had grown some cotton trials for Curtis while I was with USDA, and I enjoyed the opportunity to come and work with him. There’s a big learning curve between the public sector and private sector relating to intellectual property. I was able to learn that working alongside Curtis.”
Cotton wasn’t always in May’s blood. He was born in Bowling Green, KY, and learned his passion for agriculture from his grandfather, who owned a farm and served as county agent in Logan County, KY (“If cutting burley tobacco doesn’t make you want to go to school and study, then nothing will,” quipped May).
He earned his undergraduate degree in horticulture from the University of Connecticut, and his master’s and Ph.D. in crop science from the University of Kentucky. He worked with soft red winter wheat during his graduate studies and focused on corn in his post-doctorate work – good preparation, he said, for his work in cotton breeding.
The majority of May’s work comes in developing full season varieties that fit the Lower Southeast, Southern Mississippi and Coastal Bend areas of Texas. His primary emphasis is on breeding the non-transgenic germplasm for Deltapine, which then moves to another function within the Monsanto research structure to capture that genetic gain in new traited varieties.
May estimates that tens of thousands of potential varieties are in the system for yield testing at any one time.
“The vast majority of our test sites are in Georgia,” he noted. “We test on farms and allow growers to manage the crop so we can see how it performs under various conditions and practices. Our FACT strip trials and the Deltapine NPE program really help our breeding team see how growers react to what we’ve developed. They’re great feedback mechanisms.”
May was deeply involved in the development of Deltapine’s root knot nematode resistant varieties, which have found a home in the nematode-infested soils of South Georgia and other areas. He calls those varieties the “ultimate team success.”
“We were challenged six years to have a nematode resistant variety with a Bollgard II Roundup Flex trait package by 2014,” he recalled. “That started a team effort with breeding, molecular breeding and plant pathology to blend the germplasm, molecular markers and traits to meet that challenge.”
The result was DP 1454NR B2RF, introduced as part of Deltapine’s Class of 14. This year, DP 1558NR B2RF joined the lineup. And, May said, they’re working on Bollgard II XtendFlex varieties with the root knot nematode resistance that hopefully will be ready for on-farm testing in 2016.
May is also excited about the potential that another new variety – currently in the 2015 FACT and NPE trials – could mean for the market, especially in Georgia.
“Ten years ago, Georgia cotton was dominated by DP 555 BG/RR,” he explained. “Some mills claimed that it produced elevated short fiber content that led to such waste in the manufacturing process and defects in finished goods that they didn’t want to buy Georgia cotton.
“Mills want quality fiber, and this new variety consistently produces an unusually long staple length,” he continued. “If we could turn South and Central Georgia into the fiber quality capital of the U.S., think about what we could do to support this industry long term, especially with the trait package that would allow growers to produce cotton more economically.”
May takes pride in the fact that his work continues to meet both Deltapine and Monsanto’s aggressive targets for increasing yields. He’s also optimistic that the acres in Georgia’s traditional cotton/peanut rotation will remain stable.
“I think over the next several years, you’re going to see a succession of varieties that produce higher yields,” he said. “That’s important with 63 cent cotton. We can only take so many inputs out. The production per acre is going to be our salvation. Our access to irrigation in Georgia also bodes well for our ability to produce a long staple fiber. We just have to have the genetics to get it done.”
That, pointed out May, is just another way for the Deltapine germplasm to “keep on giving” – and add to the company’s breeding legacy.
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