Architect for hybrid barley

When Sandra Dunckel joined KWS in 2019, our hybrid barley breeding was still in its infancy. She then experienced how teamwork helped launch the first varieties on the market. Now she faces the task of restructuring breeding – with a view to the Strategic Planning 2035.

Sandra Dunckel had initially imagined that her work as an architect would be quite different. Designing houses, perhaps building theaters or famous opera houses and traveling the world? When Sandra did an internship in an architecture firm and continued to work there while taking her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she soon realized that most of the time it wasn’t about designing. “I learned a lot and the people were super nice.” At the same time, it was also a sign for Sandra that she was actually on the right track after all.

That is because, during her first internship, she had already spent a year studying agricultural sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. However, she was unsure whether she wanted to continue with the course. After her experience at the architecture firm, she knew despite her passion for design: Yes, that’s what I want.

“I was interested in science and business.” A career advisor therefore recommended agricultural sciences to Sandra. “That sounded good – because it combines both.” What’s more, Sandra, who is Argentinian by birth and moved with her parents from her father’s home country to her mother’s native Switzerland when she was six, had learned to love being on the move. “It was important for me to be able to work internationally in my profession. I realized that being an architect meant I would probably be stuck in Switzerland.” By contrast, agricultural sciences have taken her far and wide: from Switzerland and Argentina to the U.S. and Australia as a breeder, and then to KWS in the UK.

How did that come about? After earning her bachelor’s degree in Switzerland, Sandra spent more than half a year in Argentina working for an agricultural company owned by a friend of her father. “We took care of managing large farms: seed selection, crop rotation, crop protection and sowing times, for example.”

Like in the architecture firm, she learned a lot and enjoyed the work. But could she picture herself doing that all her life? “It was clear to me afterwards that I wanted to continue studying, and I then went into plant breeding with my master’s thesis.” She completed her master’s degree in wheat genetics in the U.S., as well as her PhD on wheat pre-breeding, which was funded by an industry scholarship. It enabled her to spend two months each year in Mexico at the international research institute CIMMYT, where some of her field trials were cultivated.

Establishment of a breeding strategy

She would have stayed in the U.S., but the job offers in the field of corn and soybean breeding did not appeal to her. “I would only have had to accomplish predetermined strategies. But I didn’t study the latest breeding strategies myself.” Toward the end of her postdoc, she was also keen to make another international move. She found what she was looking for on the other side of the world: In a 12-strong company in Australia where she was the only person with her expertise and established a new breeding strategy within two-and-a-half years. But then she realized that the working climate at the company no longer offered any incentives for her personal growth.

So she looked around for new opportunities, and that’s where KWS came in. Sandra already knew the company from her studies in the U.S. and took up the position of Deputy Head of Barley Breeding in February 2019. “The decision wasn’t easy because I really like Australia. But it was a good chance to get closer to my family in Europe and it turned out to be the best career opening.”

In addition to established line breeding, hybrid breeding for barley was in the midst of an exciting start-up phase. “At the time, it was not at all clear when we would be able to register the first hybrid varieties in official state trials.” However, the aim was to obtain mothers and fathers with the desired traits that were capable of being produced (info graphic: How hybrid breeding works). “Once you have the components, you can soon achieve the hybrid combinations,” says Sandra. “Developing these components with desired traits is what needs time. That takes up to 10 years on the mother side and up to seven years on the father side.” In the case of barley, an additional complication is that the cereal, which is actually self-fertilizing, has to be forced to cross-pollinate.

Enabler and strategist

During this time, Sandra frequently traveled to the hybrid barley sites in Wetze (Germany), Mons-en-Pévèle (France) and her home in Thriplow (UK) to learn more about the current status from the breeders in her team. Because her duties – as Head of Barley Breeding since 2020 – involve looking at the big picture. “I’m an enabler for my team and have their backs by taking care of strategy, personnel planning, budgeting and management with the Business Units.” Those are all organizational matters where her experience from the architecture firm proves useful: “Whether it’s a building site or field trials – both require budgeting and project management. That’s part of my job.”

Milestones in hybrid barley

Indeed, Sandra emphasizes how important she feels team spirit is. That’s apparent when she talks about the milestones in hybrid barley. On the breeding side, she mentions the first approval trials at the time of the 2022 harvest and the first variety approvals in the UK in 2024 – a market that is very receptive to this form of barley breeding. However, she also highlights a quality feature of the varieties: The fact that hybrid barley is now in its third year of official trials in the UK and is increasingly a match for its competitors. “All in all, that success is down to several departments – sales, marketing, seed production, breeding and other functions.”