Synopsis

Dr Tifeng Shan, Associate Professor of Marine Biology at the Institute of Oceanology in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, takes us on an underwater adventure to explore seaweed breeding. 

In this episode of the Plant Breeding Stories podcast, Tifeng highlights both similarities and differences when breeding aquatic and terrestrial crops. We learn about specific traits of interest for seaweed breeding programs, including increased biomass, early maturity, and improved chemical composition. He also explains how climate change and rising water temperatures could affect seaweed breeding programs in the future. We also learn about the commercial applications of seaweed and why the high-value crop has a bright future as well as exploring how collaboration with land crop breeders and use of genomics technology could accelerate advances in seaweed breeding.