My name is Mitch Tuinstra. I'm a professor of plant breeding and genetics in the Department
of Agronomy at Purdue University. This is why I'm a plant breeder. Tuinstra actually
has a name and a meaning and the meaning of the word Tuinstra is from the garden. I grew
up in a greenhouse production business in southwest Michigan. Many of my relatives,
my grandparents, and my extended family are involved in plant production. So I guess it
is really natural that I have this love of plants sort of in my DNA practically, in my
family name and heritage. I've been a part of the Agronomy Department at Purdue for a
couple of decades. I was first here as a graduate student in the early 1990s. I moved away for
ten years and joined the faculty at Kansas State University and in 2007 I rejoined the
faculty at Purdue. I am involved in research and teaching in plant breeding and genetics.
I have a 70 percent appointment in the Department of Agronomy in teaching and in research. I
advise undergraduate students, I mentor graduate students, and I coordinate and lead research
programs in corn and sorghum crop improvement. Really my research boils down, in its simplest
form, to translation. How do we take the basic understanding of science, as it relates to
genetics, biochemistry, and physiology, and take those basic principals and translate
those in developing new cultivars that are better adapted to stressful environments?
So my research program really focuses on developing climate resilient cultivars of corn and sorghum.
But in recent years, as there has been greater and greater concern about climate variability
and potential for climate change, not just in the United States but globally, I've found
that my research program has become more international in scope. I expect that looking forward that
that will probably increase. As there is more and more interest in, not just in the United
States but countries around the world, about trying to adapt their agricultural systems
to better be more resilient to the types of conditions that we are seeing today.