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Central Missouri | Here is my take onm this issue. My family have been Foundation/Breeder/Certified seed producers in MO for over 40 years. If we don't have Universities developing wheat lines the large companies will get ahold of the wheat breeding business and then look at what you will pay for seed. There is enough competition amongst certified seed growers here in MO that to produce/segregate/retain purity/bag/tag/store and assume the price/quality and sales risk we make on a good year an average of 1.50 to 2.00 per bag. Some years you eat the seed because the market is saturated. Some years you eat the seed because it is too wet to plant. On the rare occasion the seedsman makes 3-4 dollars because demand outstrips supply.
The university breeding program at MU gets roughly 60 cents per 50# unit of cleaned bagged sold seed. That isn't much. We need them in the wheat breeding business unless you want to be paying 15-20 per bag of seed wheat and then can't eben save it for yourselves. That it where it will head short of 3 years if the universities get out of the business. | |
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KSU to sue farmers over wheat usage
