NDSU Extension Agronomist, Cropping Systems Specialist Announces Retirement

Apr 18, 2024

By Mohamed Khan

After over 40 years with North Dakota State University serving North Dakota agriculture, Greg Endres, Extension cropping systems specialist, will retire effective May 1.

Endres received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in plant sciences from NDSU. He began his career with NDSU Extension as assistant agriculture and natural resources agent in Ramsey County in July 1983 and then served as an agent in Rolette County from 1985 to 1990. He has been an Extension agronomist and cropping systems specialist at the Carrington Research Extension Center since 1990.

“It has been rewarding to work as a team member with many professionals during my career to serve North Dakota crop advisers and farmers,” Endres says.

The primary focus of his work has been providing support to Extension agents for their crop production education programs. In addition, he has provided training events such as the Advanced Crop Advisers Workshop and Getting-it-Right in Crop Production series for crop advisers and farmers. His research and education efforts have involved most North Dakota crops but focused primarily on soybean and dry bean production.

“It was fulfilling to grow professionally as a soybean production resource and be able to see the acreage grow over the past three decades,” Endres adds.

Endres has served as president of the North Dakota Association of Extension 4-H Youth Workers, the North Dakota Association of Agricultural Extension Agents, and the North Dakota Chapter of Epsilon Sigma Phi, a national association for Extension professionals. He received numerous professional awards including the NDSU Agriculture Excellence in Extension award, the NDSU Agriculture Core Values award, the North Dakota Association of Agricultural Extension Agents Distinguished Service award, the North Dakota Epsilon Sigma Phi Visionary Leadership award, and North Dakota Certified Crop Adviser of the Year award.

“We are grateful for all that Greg has contributed to NDSU and agriculture in the state,” says Mohamed Khan, assistant director and program leader for agriculture and natural resources programs at NDSU Extension. “His legacy will continue through the programs and research he helped to shape.”

An open house celebration in honor of Endres is set for 2 to 4 p.m. on Monday, April 29 at the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center.

Source : ndsu.edu

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”