WALLA WALLA, WASHINGTON, US — Dylan Larkin, PhD, has joined Limagrain Cereal Seeds (LCS) to lead the company’s wheat breeding program for the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.
As the wheat breeder for the Pacific Northwest region, Larkin, who comes to LCS from Aardevo North America, will be responsible for developing and implementing strategies to breed improved conventional and CoAXium soft white and hard red winter wheat varieties. LCS’s improved varieties have been and will continue to give farmers greater choice in high-quality wheat seed and establish Limagrain Cereal Seeds and its exclusive partner GMG Marketing Group as the supplier of choice.
“We want to constantly be improving winter wheat varieties so they have better yields, better disease resistance, tolerance to insects and great end-use baking qualities,” Larkin said. “My goal is to continue developing high-quality wheat varieties that farmers have grown to expect from LCS in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.”
Larkin brings 12 years of experience in the agriculture industry to his new position and has a deep knowledge of breeding programs in the Pacific Northwest. He received his bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University, where he studied agronomy and plant breeding and genetics.
Larkin continued his education at Washington State University, where he worked with the USDA-ARS club wheat breeding program, focusing his research on soil-borne diseases in wheat. Later, he completed his PhD in crop, soil and environmental sciences at the University of Arkansas, where he worked with the wheat breeding program.
After graduating, he worked as a postdoctoral scholar with the Oregon State University barley breeding program. Before starting at LCS, he held the position of line development breeder at Aardevo North America, where he helped establish a hybrid potato breeding program.
“LCS is pleased to have Dylan on the PNW team,” said Tatiana Henry, chief operating officer of LCS. “He has a unique combination of experience that will strongly contribute to the PNW breeding program for the benefit of farmers.”
LCS is a cereal breeding operation dedicated to developing new wheat and barley varieties bred expressly for farmers’ climates, soils and growing conditions. LCS is a division of Group Limagrain, a farmer’s cooperative established in 1965 with cereal breeding programs in every area of the world wheat and barley are widely grown.
