Team:MichiganState/HP Site Visit

Site Visit

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On June 19, 2018, five members of the MSU iGEM team visited the Monsanto Learning Center (MLC) in Monmouth, Illinois. We know that Monsanto has recently had a negative public image, but their learning center is open to the public and does general education on agrobiological topics such as genetics and crop growth. We were taken on a tour of their agricultural test fields by Troy Coziahr, the manager of the MLC. He talked to us about hybrid breeding methods, the evolution of corn and soybean plants over time, and field trials of genetically modified crops. Mr. Coziahr was very knowledgeable about the most efficient ways to get those crops federally approved and then planted. This is useful to our own research because we hope to eventually have our own genetically modified crops.