Mark Hoffmann, Michael Palmer, Ibraheem Olasupo, Lizeth Vigil and Ricardo Hernandez (NCSU, Department of Horticultural Sciences)
Opening up a new line of thought, a new method of technology or inhabiting a new niche – all that is often associated with one front runner, one special individual. But in reality pioneering is not a solo activity. It often takes a village to move the needle. Having this in the back of our minds, this project was collaborative from the get-go, to achieve one of the main milestones: A fast transition of knowledge and technology into early adopting industry. Here we want to highlight two examples: The collaboration between the PIP-CAP team, Grafted Growers LLC and Phlora Inc., as well as between PIP-CAP and Plenty Unlimited Inc.
Grafted Growers and Phlora are NC based ag-biotech start-up companies. Due to their proximity to NCSU, they were a prime partner to set up a fully enclosed indoor strawberry nursery – the first one of its kind in NC. But what sounds like a simple task on paper, is a large learning curve for everyone involved. Be it the modification of irrigation systems, the management of several feet of stolons or a flooded warehouse. We have to thank PhD student Michael Palmer, Post-Doc Dr. Ibraheem Olasupo, and especially Dr. Ricardo Hernandez and the rest of the Grafted Grower’s team for their dedication and commitment to overcome those obstacles.
Six strawberry cultivars were raised from tissue culture, deep-sequenced for viruses, and established as strawberry mother plants (Figure 1). Daughters that derived from those mothers (one generation away from tissue culture) were then rooted at the same facility and shipped for field evaluations to California, Florida and North Carolina. Each of those steps brought value to our industry partners as well as to the PIP-CAP team. And we only are getting started. In the near future, Dr. Olasupo will begin phenotyping experiments in the facility, while the nursery will be scaled up to serve more capacity.
Another example for a successful transition of knowledge is our close and consistent collaboration with the Plenty research team in Laramie, Wyoming. What started out as a careful get-to-know each other has quickly become a monthly meeting between friends, during which we talk -among other things- about strawberries and share information. Those conversations have helped students and industry alike, and helped to develop a mutual environment of trust. Graduate students Samson Humphrey, Moein Moosavi-Nezhad and many more are frequent guests, chatting with the Plenty team about runnering, rooting and research. Four PIP-CAP students visited plenty in our summer internship program, all of which brought insights back to their home institutions that will improve their research. While you will read more about the internship program in the next issue, two things have become clear: Academia-Industry is a two-way street, and pioneers are never alone.