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Edward Souza

Global Director, Wheat Breeding, Bayer

Expert Bio

Ed Souza is responsible for developing and directing wheat breeding operations in North America, European Union, Ukraine and Australia. Having completed discovery and technical proof of concept for hybrid wheat methodology in a three-year international research program, Ed designed and now leads development of Bayer’s hybrid wheat breeding program. He also manages research agreements with four universities in North America and cooperative research projects with three seed companies in Europe and South America.

Prior to joining Bayer in 2011, Ed was lead scientist with Kraft Foods, where he developed uniform standards for measuring soft wheat quality in global germplasm bas, improved quality of soft wheat outside of North America, and transferred disease resistance and gluten strength from non-soft wheat germplasm into soft wheat germplasm. Before this position, Ed held a number of wheat breeding scientific and teaching positions. Ed has a number of written works about wheat breeding to his credit, as well as a registered cover crop patent.

Ed received a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Biometry and from Cornell University and a B.S. in Plant Science from University of California, Davis. 

Studies, Articles and Answers

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Question

Q: What is the differences between conventional breeding and hybridization?

Answered By Edward Souza - Jun 12, 2017

A: First of all, to clarify – hybridization is part of conventional breeding and conventional breeding uses hybridization to create new combinations of genes from parent varieties. For example, a disease-resistant wheat variety may be hybridized to a variety that makes flour better suited for making whole wheat bread. This is a common goal of most conventional breeding programs. It typically involves taking pollen from one parent and using it to fertilize another parent. The seed from the hybridization is formed from the pollen and ovule of the two parents. The difference in b [...]

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