Role Purpose

• Plant breeders/geneticists apply a range of techniques to produce new and improved varieties of plants. Their role is vital to the seed industry, allowing it to increase and maintain yields in important crops grown for many uses, such as food and pharmaceuticals.

Typical Work Activities

• Drawing up aims and objectives, and budgeting
• Researching methods and techniques for improving plant breeding
• Identifying and selecting plants exhibiting desirable traits
• Crossing plants to produce new breeding material in field or greenhouse
• Analyzing and evaluating field and/or greenhouse trials
• Managing and supporting technical staff
• Keeping up with latest scientific literature
• Staying informed about industry developments
• Working with sales and production in developing and implementing company strategy
• Responding to enquiries from farmers, agronomists and other professionals;
• Working with molecular biologists using advanced and sophisticated techniques to s manipulate genes
• Traveling to other research locations including winter nurseries

Educational Requirements

• Advanced degree(s) in Genetics and Plant Breeding preferably at the Ph.D level

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Familiarity with normal agricultural practices in the target species being improved
• Very good computer skills
• Leadership skills and ability to manage and motivate people
• Ability to work outdoors for long hours
• Familiarity with agricultural equipment an asset

RESOURCES

• Plant breeding basics - Plant breeding is a key driver of crop agriculture, but it’s even more complex than might first appear (Country Guide)

Role Purpose

• Performs research and/or development in collaboration and support of plant breeding strategies to create profitable products.

Typical Work Activities

• Variety development and evaluation, including exercising technical discretion in the design, execution and interpretation of experiments that contribute to project strategies.
• Growing, maintaining and harvesting plants (field and greenhouse)
• Supervise specific research projects.
• Work with Trialing organization and define common platform for evaluating and grading varieties
• Growing plants of all ages (primarily in the greenhouse)
• Manage seed inventories
• Develop and follow sanitation protocols
• Manage seed movement
• Manage all planting, pollinating and harvest activities
• Enter and analyze trial data

Educational Requirements

• B.S. in agriculture field with plant breeding experience
• M.S. in plant breeding preferred

Skills, Knowledge, and Experience

• Knowledge of plant breeding, plant biology, statistics and agriculture.
• Demonstrated knowledge of the whole plant.
• Knowledge of plant pathology.
• Knowledge of yield testing
• Computer expertise in data handling both in field and lab
• Familiarity with agricultural machinery

Role Purpose

• Research Technicians are key in overseeing the implementation of the plant breeders programs from paper to field. They work closely with the plant breeder to understand the goals of the plant breeding program. They are responsible for recruiting and managing seasonal and permanent field and seed lab help and coordinating the work activities of planting, pollinating, harvest, and data collection of nurseries and yield trials.

Typical Work Activities

• Assists with field mapping, seed filling, packet sorting, planting activities, pollination, harvest, seed requests, seed shipping and receiving and supply orders.
• Supervise short-term part-time employee crews to complete field, lab, and data collection and uploading operations
• Operates and maintains field equipment (tractor, sprayer, planter, combine) in support of experiments conducted at the centre.
• Lead maintenance of seed inventory
• Ensures all operations are completed in a safe manner.
• Job will require occasional travel and extended hours with weekend work during seasonal workload peaks.

Educational Requirements

• Post-secondary degree or diploma in an agriculture-related discipline or high school diploma and 2 to 4 years of related experience.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Experience in operating farm machinery and or mechanical aptitude essential
• Knowledge and comfort with computers and other data gathering devices
• Enjoy people and outdoor work
• Capable of working long hours doing physical work during peak periods of planting , pollination and harvest
• Knowledge of agronomy, crop production, plant development, and experimental field plot design.

Role Purpose

• Usually part of an Trait team, this scientist is responsible for developing scripts/pipelines/algorithms, conducting independent data analysis and data mining, as well as understanding and improving current bioinformatics tools and processes. Candidate will have the opportunity to develop novel strategies and exploit novel data sets.

Typical Work Activities

• Understand the research questions from experimental biologists and formulate relevant in silico analyses
• Critically analyze a wide variety of experimental and computational data with a view to solving the underlying research questions.
• Generate hypotheses from in silico analyses and evaluate the errors and gaps in the evidences supporting the hypotheses
• Identify and generate datasets for scientific testing and evaluation of algorithms developed within the group
• Take forward data sets from their raw format to establishing proof of concept single handedly.

Educational Requirements

• MS in Molecular Biology and/or Bioinformatics with 7 years experience in Bioinformatics, PhD with 2 years experience or BS with > 10 years experience. Computer Science degrees with the related amount of experience in a biological field may be considered

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Must be proficient with Unix OS and have experience in the command line use of various bioinformatics applications
• Strong skills with Perl and/or other scripting/programming languages
• Demonstrated skills in performing batch analyses, parsing and interpreting results for trait scientists
• Knowledge of molecular biology/genomics, experience analyzing experimental data and capability to define requirements of scientists
• Understanding of statistical analysis methods used in data analysis
• Experience in one or more areas of next generation sequence analysis, genome sequence assembly and annotation, profiling data and statistical analysis, data integration, proteomics, genomics or systems biology
• Support of bioinformatics applications
• SQL and knowledge of database design
• Experience in agricultural biotechnology or plant sciences

Role Purpose

• This scientist takes a lead role in the use of molecular markers to develop and improve new seed varieties. Works closely with plant breeders to identify molecular markers associated with key traits and develops and implements strategies to consolidate those traits into new varieties in a timely and efficient manner.

Typical Work Activities

• Managing a team of scientists and technical assistants within the molecular marker department including budget responsibilities
• Work with the plant breeding scientists to design and implement breeding programs incorporating marker/ genomic tools
• Oversee the operation and resourcing of molecular marker laboratories and technicians
• Establishment and improvement of new tools for marker/genomics breeding
• Development of strategies across crops in the field of marker/genomics in plant breeding
• Working within an international team of scientists and breeders
• Public relation to international scientific research facilities

Educational Requirements

• University degree in natural science
• PhD in molecular genetics or breeding would be desirable

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• At least 5 years experience in application of molecular marker technology to variety improvement
• Experience in team leadership
• Demonstrated strategic thinking and results orientation

Role Purpose

• Provides leadership role in conducting pathology evaluation and screening activities to support new variety development

Typical Work Activities

• Maintain plant pathogens culture collection.
• Conduct plant disease evaluations of germplasm pools.
• Conduct disease screening of germplasm pools for breeding purposes.
• Keep current on identity of new plant diseases.
• Maintain data entry of pathology evaluations.
• Maintain Access database ensuring disease results are current.
• Monitor lab supplies ordering when supplies are needed.
• Perform all duties in accordance with safety rules and regulations

Educational Requirements

• Bachelors degree in Plant Pathology or closely related field

Skills, Knowledge, and Experience

• Two years of experience conducting diagnosis and research of plant diseases and pathogens.
• General knowledge of all aspects of plant pathology.
• Knowledge of the principles and practices and techniques of plant pathology and plant physiology.
• Knowledge of plant identification and the general principles of plant disease and control.
• Knowledge of specialized investigative procedures and techniques for isolating, identifying and evaluating plant pathogens.
• Ability to identify plants and plant pests and diseases

Role Purpose

• This position provides day-to-day supervision for a variety of research activities at company a research station.
• The position will play a key role in developing superior varieties primarily for by supporting all phases of experiment planning, data collection, data quality and analysis, seed filling, and field activities including planting, pollinating and harvest.

Typical Work Activities

• Manage all on-station and off-station farming operations associated with the Yield Testing program
• Manage data from field collection through central storage including data quality checking and classification.
• Acquire and maintain facilities and equipment for effective and efficient functioning of all Yield Testing operations.
• Work with Plant Breeder to develop and manage an annual station budget that supports research goals and objectives
• Collaborate with other research stations to exchange ideas, plots, data and other items to maximize performance of the team.
• Operate research equipment (planters, sprayers, combines, trucks, trailers).
• Develop and establish proficiency with new technology and computer programs related to the overall breeding effort.

Educational Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in agronomy or related field and minimum of 5 to 8 years of industry related experience, or Master’s Degree and 2 to 4 years of experience.

Skills, Knowledge, and Experience

• Excellent planning and organization skills
• Ability to plan and manage multiple projects completely and accurately
• Agronomic expertise to include herbicide knowledge and application, tillage practices, crop scouting, problem identification and solving, as well as knowledge of experimental field plot design.
• Experience with agricultural based machinery and equipment
• Knowledge and experience using research plot equipment is highly desirable.
• Self-motivation and ability to initiate projects, improvements, decisions and problem solving
• Supervisory and leadership skills to effectively coordinate complex research station operations are required. 

Role Purpose

Takes the lead role in managing the operation of a research station whose focus is the development of new seed varieties for the company. Is responsible for the operation of the site, its buildings, equipment, safety, health and working environment. Fosters a team oriented environment that coordinates the demands of different research teams Enhances the companies image as viewed by customers in the rural locations where the research station is based.

Typical Work Activities

• Manage and coordinate crop activities on the site.
• Propose required human and facilities resources, in order to assure a well running site
• Organize the operations and maintenance of the site
• Manage and lead teams (crops, maintenance, and administration) and interact on a daily basis with clients for optimal execution of tasks and projects.
• Make budget proposals within administrative deadline and operate to within budgeted targets
• Implement and comply with procedures regarding safety, security, and the environment. employees have access to, and are informed of company and group policies and procedures.
• Manage and control the general administration of the site, in particular, the accurate accounting of all material and contract labor purchases.
• Oversee any satellite breeding or screening stations. Work together with other site manager to allow uniform way of working.

Educational Requirements

• M.S. or B.S. with experience in Agronomy or equivalent

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Experience in managing facilities and teams
• Knowledge of agricultural research
• Knowledge and experience working with agricultural machinery
• Demonstrated leadership and superior communication skills

Role Purpose

• Provides leadership role in managing all aspects of quality in the biotechnology department including laboratories, containment facilities, permitting and deregulation petitions.
  Provides leadership role in managing plasmid design, plant transformation laboratory, molecular analysis laboratory, containment facilities, event creation/sorting, represent Biotechnology Quality Management System (BQMS), permitting and deregulation petitions.

Typical Work Activities

• Facilitate the transfer and implementation of biotechnology within organization
• Assist in coordinating daily biotechnology activities providing a leadership role.
• Coordinate and document quality control data for DNA constructs.
• Manage plant transformation laboratory and plant transformation activities.
• Responsible for the development and implementation of gene detection and expression protocols.
• Participate in the development and maintenance of biotechnology database.
• Obtains necessary permits for biotechnology activities and plays lead role in deregulation communications.
• Ensure that laboratory and containment facility practices performed by staff are in accordance with work safety and environmental regulations.

Educational Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s or Ph.D. degree in Biotechnology or closely related field.

Skills, Knowledge, and Experience

• Five years of biotechnology or similar experience.
• Knowledge of principles and practices of E.coli and Agrobacterium manipulation, plant transformation, tissue culture, gene detection, greenhouse cultural techniques, lab safety, quality  management principles, and State and Federal regulations.
• Ability to identify research needs, coordinate and manage multi discipline research projects.