While tidying up my office I found the handout that accompanied my presentation in a breeding strategy meeting, held in Noosa, Australia in August 2005. Of course I entered “procrastination mode” and started reading the document which, modesty aside, was nicely written (thanks Tim Osborn for the editing suggestions 19 years ago!). I was surprised in several ways by this handout.
First surprise: I did write a seven-page-long document to go with my presentation! I very rarely do this these days, but it is an under appreciated opportunity to organise one’s thoughts. Just looking at the PowerPoint file, which I also found, has very limited context and it is a much inferior experience.
Second surprise: most of my suggestions were not implemented. I failed to convince people at that time in the meeting. Replacing sublines with mate selection/allocation, simpler breeding objective, overlapping generations, etc. were not included in the updated breeding strategy.
Third surprise: most (but not all, yet) of the suggestions have been implemented in the current breeding programme. Sometimes people just needs time to put ideas in context, and over almost two decades context caught up with my presentation.
Interesting fact: following that meeting I took a flight from Brisbane to Christchurch, New Zealand, where I was interviewed for my current position at the University of Canterbury, where I started in January 2006.
