Delta and Pine Land Company announced today that the new research stations in Georgia and Texas will be opened by cotton breeders Dr. Jeff Klingenberg and Dr. Gary Rea. Plans for the new stations were announced in August when the company said it would focus additional resources on research and development efforts.

"Breeding and research are at the heart of Delta and Pine Land and the addition of these two stations and the leadership at them will certainly build on our tradition," says Steve M. Hawkins, D&PL president. "Creation of new research stations combined with the experience and expertise of these two gentlemen will offer us enormous potential. We will ultimately be able to introduce genetics developed for and tested in these regions and we expect these programs to make a difference for our customers in Georgia, Texas and in fact, the Cotton Belt as a whole."

Klingenberg and Rea have extensive plant breeding experience and are looking forward to opening the new programs that will place primary importance on breeding new varieties for the regions in which they will be housed, according to Dr. Bill Hugie, D&PL vice president of research. New strains and varieties developed in these programs will participate in the Delta and Pine Land Beltwide testing program that includes research stations located in Hartsville, SC; Leland, MS; Scott, MS; Hale Center, TX and Maricopa, AZ.

Klingenberg, who has been with D&PL’s transgenic integration program for three years, will relocate from Maricopa, AZ to southern Georgia to concentrate primarily on full-season varieties adapted to the Southeast. His efforts will complement those of Dr. Cindy Green located in Hartsville, SC.

Klingenberg helped open the transgenic facility in Maricopa. He has worked with numerous Deltapine, Paymaster and Sure-Grow varieties and has been heavily involved in the Pima transgenic conversion program. Before joining D&PL, Klingenberg worked as a breeder with Seeds West Inc. and at the University of Arizona’s Maricopa Farm Center.

Klingenberg grew up on a family farm in Yuma County and later received his undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona at Tucson. He received his masters in plant breeding and genetics from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, and his Ph.D. in that discipline from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

With twenty years of breeding experience in Texas, Dr. Gary Rea will focus on needs of growers on Texas’ Rolling Plains as he opens the region’s new facility. During his tenure with D&PL, Rea has conducted breeding research and testing in the Rolling Plains while working from the Hale Center, TX station, headed by Dr. Richard Sheetz. This move will provide heightened activity in the development of both stripper and picker varieties adapted for the area. Yield, drought tolerance and storm resistance are some of the characteristics which will be high priorities.

Rea’s previous breeding experience has been with High Plains varieties at D&PL as well as other companies. Among the most notable positions he held was breeder at Seed Co. in Lubbock, where he released several varieties. He was also a cotton breeder working on hybridization of cotton for Pioneer.

His crop science education focused on plant breeding and genetics as he completed his masters at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, TX and his doctorate at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK.

Delta and Pine Land Company is a commercial breeder, producer and marketer of cotton planting seed, as well as soybean seed in the Cotton Belt. For more than 80 years, the Mississippi-based company has used its extensive plant breeding programs drawing from a diverse germplasm base to develop superior varieties. Delta and Pine Land has offices in seven states and facilities in several foreign countries.