Dieter K. Mulitze, PhD

How can information technology make seed companies more successful?

Since the mid 1970s, I have been involved in developing software for plant breeders and have visited plant breeders at seed companies, universities and government research organizations around the world. As a former plant breeder myself, I can readily appreciate the contributions that information technology can make to plant breeding. 

For seed companies and public breeding programs alike, information technology can increase their success by efficiently managing and analyzing the plant breeding data and empowering breeders to make confident, insightful and timely decisions. To meet this goal, information technology must be easy to use, powerful, comprehensive, and reliable.  A relational database software system meets those requirements. 

Using a single software package to manage variety and pedigree information, design trials, aid in field operations, and analyze and store data eliminates the time lost from transferring data between applications. A relational database permits researchers to quickly summarize variety performance across locations or years or instantly find all the data for any genotype, rather than searching through hundreds of individual files. As a result, more time and effort can be committed to the more critical extraction and interpretation of data, thereby increasing the likelihood of releasing new, royalty-paying varieties.

Overall, for a software system to increase the success of a seed company, it must offer at least the following:

What specific solutions does your company offer?

We offer AGROBASE Generation II™, a comprehensive and fully relational software system for plant breeding, agronomy, and variety testing. AGROBASE Generation II supports agronomic trials and pedigree data management, many experimental designs and statistical analysis of data, genetic analyses, genotype x environment analyses, varietal comparisons, image display of varieties, and much more, meeting the criteria above. Generation II runs on stand-alone PCs, on LANs, or on Terminal Server® or Citrix® for connectivity across a region or globally.

The development of AGROBASE Generation II has capitalized on our experience in developing an earlier version of the software, which was adopted by breeders and agronomists in over 70 countries worldwide. Generation II continues to evolve annually, with improvements and enhancements driven by the needs of our clients as reflected in currently a new release every six months.  Regional and customized training courses help our clients to use the software efficiently and realize the maximum return on their software investment.  Saving time, money, and effort are the goals we set for our software, helping our clients achieve greater success in the seed industry.

Generation II is licensed as a Basic Agronomic System which is the foundation or “core” of the software.  In addition, there are four optional modules which may be licensed according to a client’s needs. The modules are: Advanced Statistics, Varietal Comparisons, Pedigree Data Management, and Image Display. A new module will be released late 2007 or early 2008.

What are the more “unique or novel” aspects of your software solution?

We have found that Microsoft Excel® is widely used, with breeders and technicians using it on handhelds as well as on their PCs. Thus, we have developed a direct “express link” which lets a user export Microsoft Excel® sheets almost instantly from Generation II, even for an entire location or any logical grouping of experiments and trials. After data has been entered, it can be all imported into Generation II seamlessly with literally a few mouse clicks – even for many thousands of datapoints. Many of our users appreciate the time saved by this almost instant “soaking up” of data into a relational database system.

Seed companies develop new genotypes for many different crops and plant species, sometimes within the same  company. This involves many breeding schemes – cloning, male sterile lines, double haploids, hybrid development, synthetics, etc. – readily supported by the 19 different breeding events available in Generation II. In addition, the breeder can actually view the progress across years or generations for progeny from any set of parents, crosses, or populations. This increases the probability of success since the breeder should have a way to measure progress for a given trait and ideally also relate that to any molecular marker data. With millions of dollars at stake in developing new genotypes, this is a critical point and goes beyond simply managing data.     

An increasing number of seed companies are using more sophisticated statistical analyses, especially mixed model analyses of variety trials or non-orthogonal datasets as well as various spatial or early generation non-replicated designs. Rather than “re-invent” the wheel, we have forged a strategic alliance with VSNi International in the UK, developers of the world-renowned and widely-used GenStat® statistical package. For our users who also have a GenStat license and desire even more advanced analyses, they can now analyze their data directly and seamlessly from within Generation II while using GenStat. This has generated a lot of interest, and offers a new “synergy” between efficient relational data management and the most advanced of statistical analyses. 

With the greater capacity of media storage and the advances in digital photo storage, more and more seed companies have been asking for the display of digital images along with their “normal” numeric and character data. Accordingly, digital photos can be taken for an experiment, a genotype or variety, a type of disease or insect reaction, or even for a trait for a treatment for any given plot in the field or a pot in a greenhouse. Flower and vegetable breeders in particular appreciate this capability. Breeders who want to recall what an experiment looked like at emergence or maturity or harvest several years ago appreciate the ability to immediately display the digital image.              

Agronomix Software, Inc. is a software development company established in 1990 to provide specialized database management and analysis software for plant breeders, plant researchers, and agronomists.

For more information about Agronomix Software, Inc., please visit www.agronomix.com.
Dr. Mulitze can be reached at mulitze@agronomix.mb.ca