This Project Aims to Revolutionize the Grain Industry in the Southeast U.S.
A concept originated at the Advanced Plant Technology Program at Clemson University is becoming a business with the goal of revolutionizing the grain industry in the Southeast region of the U.S.
Most U.S. seed companies are located in the Midwest, and sorghum companies are centered around Texas, where the sorghum being bred is not ideal for growing in the Southeast.
Carolina Seed Systems is emerging as a grower-focused company that plans to capitalize upon South Carolina’s unique environment to address a lack of feed grain hybrid crop development and a regional feed shortage. They seek to create a feed grain pipeline throughout the Southeast by developing a regional-specific sorghum that will offer high yields and profitability for grain farmers.
To do so, company founder, Zack Brenton, an alumnus of the Advanced Plant Technology Program, together with Richard Boyles, a research scientist at Clemson’s Pee Dee Research and Education Center, evaluated the characteristics of grain sorghum, and began determining what genes are responsible for adaption to the climate in South Carolina and the Southeast U.S.
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