“Making use of the latest technology benefits agriculture and the crops we grow. With autonomous tractors and drones enhancing precision and efficiency, we can also leverage gene technology to identify functions and traits in crops, improving their resilience, safety for farming, and nutritional value for consumers.”
Tom Burchell
President of Burchell Breeding Inc.
Breeding Program
genome Research initiative
In 2018 the founders of Burchell Breeding, Inc. began the painstaking pursuit to address the most pressing issues facing almond growers through the establishment of the ORIGINS™ Genome Research Initiative focused on —
Nonpareil Self and Universal-Compatibility
Yield
Efficient Use of Resources
Disease Resistance
Climate Resilience
STEPS TO SUCCESS
1 BURCHELL NURSERY
STARTING POINT
Burchell Nursery provides the starting point with access to elite varieties, breeding expertise for the production of new varieties, trait mapping populations, and field and facilities for varietal testing and seed production.
2 POPULATION GENETICS
& TRAIT MAPPING
Investment by Burchell in developing trait mapping and breeding populations along with automated phenotyping tools. Mapping populations are analyzed to identify the genetic basis for trait of interest. Biological samples are analyzed by genomics methods to identify candidate genes for traits of interest. Genomic-assisted breeding technology is used to accelerate the production of new varieties.
3 GENOMICS & TRAIT
GENE IDENTIFICATION
Verinomics creates reference genomes for elite Burchell germplasm and genomes are assembled and annotated using proprietary algorithms. Biological samples from mapping populations are sequenced and statistical methods are used to identify gene(s) of interest. Machine learning and AI are applied to identify candidate trait genes used to develop molecular markers for genomic-assisted breeding. Candidate trait genes are validated by gene editing and varietal improvement.
4 GENOMIC-ASSISTED BREEDING
Validated molecular trait markers are designed for self-compatibility, flowering time, drought tolerance and other traits and used to accelerate varietal development by genomic-assisted breeding.
5 COMMERCIAL
GENE EDITING
A comprehensive platform for gene editing — tissue culture, transformation, editing and regeneration has been developed. Candidate trait genes are validated and edited traits are rapidly incorporated into elite germplasm to improve harvestability, disease resistance and abiotic stress resistance.
6 ENHANCED
VARIETAL RELEASE
Proprietary varieties that incorporate climate-resistant, agronomic and consumer traits are field-tested and benchmarked at Burchell at select locations. Field-tested varieties are subject to seed production and distribution.
The breeders at Burchell Breeding, Inc., in collaboration with Verinomics, Inc. — an industry-leading genetics company working with top academic consultants — have looked to the past to build a better, more profitable future for their customers by developing the most extensive proprietary library of almond traits and genetic maps of elite varieties.
INTRODUCING
FIRST and ONLY Self-Compatible Almond Variety that is also Universally Pollen Cross-Compatible with ANY OTHER almond variety!
One Shake, One Harvest
Lower Operating Costs
Increased Revenue
Nonpareil SC+™ a Genesis™ Almond Variety planted in an existing Nonpareil orchard will successfully pollinate with the original Nonpareil trees!
The Genesis™ Series
Burchell Nursery strengthening your business by shaping a more sustainable and profitable future in collaboration with Verinomics, Inc.
Timeline
2027
First shipments of
Nonpareil SC+
Late 2026
Accepting orders for Nonpareil SC+
2025
Nursery testing of self-compatible Nonpareil (Nonpareil SC+)
2024
Nonpareil SC+ introduced
2022
Regenerated Nonpareil plants from single cells
2021
Nonpareil self-compatibility alleles gene-edited
2020
Burchell Breeding incorporated
2018
Verinomics collaboration began
Tom Burchell
Burchell Nursery, Inc.
Tom Burchell who has led the company since 2004, may have inherited his traits of humility, positivity and perseverance, but he’s honed his skills through study and hard work. Holder of an Ornamental Horticulture degree from Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, Tom initiated the product development division at Burchell Nursery, and the Burchell Breeding Inc. operation that collaborates with nurseries in Chile, Australia, Middle East, South Africa and Europe. “While I'm proud of the nursery’s past, I'm focused on the future and how the breeding program can help farmers be ready for whatever it holds. This requires innovative thinking, but also takes daily diligence, as bringing new varieties to market is roughly a ten-year commitment.” says Tom.
Professor
Steve Dellaporta
Verinomics, Inc.
Professor Dellaporta is Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University, and the Founder of Verinomics, a genomics, computational biology and gene editing company located in New Haven, CT and Berkeley, CA. He received the BSc degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1976, graduate studies in Genetics at Iowa State University and at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1977-81). His postdoctoral research was conducted in molecular genetics at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1981-83). Prof. Dellaporta was co-founder of the plant molecular biology program at CSHL. He has held the positions of Staff Scientist at Cold Spring Harbor (1983-86), Assistant (1986-89), Associate (1990-96) and Full Professor (1996-present) in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale. His research contributions include advances in plant genetics, the understanding of transposable elements, computational biology, plant developmental biology, functional and population genomics. He has co-authored numerous publications in scientific journals such as Cell, Nature, Science, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sciences, and Genetics, Science Advances, among others. Prof. Dellaporta’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, United States Department of Energy, United States Department of Agriculture, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has served on the numerous scientific advisory panels at the NIH, DoE, NSF and USDA. Dr.Dellaporta served for over 15 years on the Board of Control of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, our Nation’s first. He currently serves as scientific advisor to the agriculture biotechnology sector.
Doctor
Christopher Fragoso
Verinomics, Inc.
Dr. Christopher Fragoso is a Computational Biologist at Verinomics. He holds a Ph.D. in Computational Biology from Yale University and has extensive experience in plant genetic diversity assessment, trait mapping, and algorithm development for genome assembly, statistical imputation, and guide RNA design. Dr. Fragoso’s postdoctoral work at the Innovative Genomics Institute, University of California Berkeley, further honed his expertise in gene editing technologies. His current work focuses on agricultural genomics, particularly in developing algorithms for crop improvement through computational biology approaches, and high-throughput phenotyping systems.