b"For Tar Spot, Seed Choice is ImperativePeter Lynch, vice president of research at AgReliant Genetics, discusses how seed choice and hybrids are helping stop tar spot in its tracks.Seed World (SW): What's the outlook of tar spot?does that team evaluate both our inbreds and our hybrids, but Peter Lynch (PL): This disease is clearly top-of-mind withthey also then provide training to all of our breeders and field farmers. AgReliant Genetics recently completed a researchresearchers. When they spend time in the field, theyre able to survey to understandwhat farmers are thinking about tar spotrate our trials for those diseases and several other diseases in and how they're approaching strategies for managing it. Theorder for us to be able to really understand across multiple envi-survey shows that farmers have become more concerned aboutronments and how our germplasm performs.tar spot than other diseases like northern corn leaf blight, south-ern rust and Gosss wilt. Yet they dont have clear understandingSW: I know different companies have different tar spot about the disease mechanism and how to manage it.rating systems. How does AgReliant Genetics stack up?PL: AgReliant Genetics rating systems are based on our research SW: How do seed choices factor into decisions? teams field observations of hybrid performance in the face of tar PL: They're factoring highly into decisions right now. When wespot.We rate our hybrids and include those ratings within seed think about tar spot, its a disease that is quantitativethe toler- guides for our LG Seeds and AgriGold brands. LG Seeds uses a ance is quantitative in nature, meaning that there are multipleone to nine scaleone being susceptible and nine being highly tol-genes that have varying degrees of impact. One of the areas oferant. AgriGold uses a one to five scale. Not only that, our agrono-research for us is to understand some of those factors that bringmists can also help the farmer customer make decisions around that tolerance into the hybrids, where those reside in our germ- what would be the best combination of tolerance for them.plasm pool, and how we're able to bring those together into commercial products that are available for the farmer.SW: What are you hoping to see in the future of tar spot solutions?SW: Are there any specific genetics that work well? PL: You know, I bring it back to AgReliant Genetics. Were a PL: From the breeding portfolio, when our breeders rate inbredscompany that is focused solely on seed. Our research is really for their tolerance to tar spot, we have the good fortune ofdirected towards genetic improvements. We have a portfo-having a number of inbreds with a high level of tolerance both onlio of germplasm that is unique specifically to AgReliant. And, the male and the female side of the pedigree. When we combinewe're one of the few global germplasm pools to be able to those together, we are actually able to bring high levels of toler- work against overcoming these diseaseswe bring all of that ance on both sides of the pedigree. And fortunately, those elitetogether into hybrids that are unique to AgReliant for farmer inbreds also bring high productivity to the table. customers. I'm hoping to see for tar spot that we continue through our focus on genetic improvement and that we're able SW: Can you tell me a little bit more about how you rateto increase the levels of tolerance in our unique hybrids over some of those hybrids for tar spot? time. Finally, I hope we're able to offer them more hybrids across PL: We have a pathology team. That team helps us create amore maturity zones.SWstandard method around evaluating hybrids or inbreds. Not only 48/ SEEDWORLD.COMFEBRUARY 2023"