03/30/05 ARS lab at Aberdeen gets expansion

Ground will be broken at Aberdeen today for the 12 thousand square foot addition to the Agricultural Research Service's existing lab and office building. Research leader Mike Bonman says they simply ran out of space. BONMAN "Scientist Doctor Victor Raybois has been in a trailer for the last I think six or seven years in temporary lab space." You might be familiar with Ranger Russet, Alturas or the recently released Defender, potato varieties that had their beginning in the ARS lab in Aberdeen. BONMAN "We will have the capability to do some more sophisticated genetics on the potatoes and we hope in the future then to speed up the process of variety development not only for potato but for barley and oats. We have a very prominent University of Idaho wheat breeding team that's going to be in the new building. They're applying molecular technology to their breeding effort as well. So all of those things. Plus we have a very interesting trout-grains project where we're breeding small grains to be better sources of protein and oil for trout feed." One year from now the expanded Advanced Genetics Laboratory at Aberdeen should be up and running at full speed. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott