Special Report

Germplasm improvements coming exponentially

Shannon Schultz has been in the seed business a long time, and since the 1980s, has noticed changes in the way seed germplasm is improving. “There was not a lot of money in agriculture and things were not moving very fast,” he told Brownfield Ag News at the Farm Progress Show. “Today it’s moving a lot faster.” Improvements to seeds, said Schultz, a district sales manager for DeKalb and Asgrow, are coming more frequently. “If you look at the best stuff on the market compared to the worst stuff on the market, there’s such a big gap, and that’s because the top end has continued to climb,” he said. In the next five years, Shultz expects germplasm to change at a faster clip than it is today.

AUDIO: Shannon Schultz (3 min. MP3)