🌾Agriculture
Plant Breeder
Develops new, higher-yielding, hardier plant varieties
Crosses and selects plants to produce varieties with higher yields and resistance to disease and drought — work that decides what will grow in fields ten years from now.
What they do
- ▹Crosses plants and selects the best for yield and resilience
- ▹Trials new varieties on experimental plots under different conditions
- ▹Maintains the purity and quality of the seed stock
- ▹Prepares the documentation to register a new variety
Skills you need
- ▹Deep knowledge of plant genetics and physiology
- ▹Patience — results only show after several years and generations
- ▹Rigor and accuracy across multi-year observations
- ▹Research-minded thinking
- ▹Working with lab and field equipment
Focus on these subjects at school
BiologyChemistry
Where they work
- ▹Agricultural and plant-breeding research institutes
- ▹Seed-growing farms and nurseries
- ▹Agricultural universities
- ▹International plant-breeding programmes and projects
Pros
- + Work with a long-term impact — a new variety feeds farms for decades
- + Combines scientific work with practical benefit for agriculture
Challenges
- − A very long cycle — years pass from idea to new variety
- − A narrow specialization with a limited number of research positions
Programs that lead to this profession
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