Startup Idea: Agricultural R&D Software for Wheat Breeding

Startup idea to develop a custom software for wheat breeders. The software should address the drawbacks of the existing system Variety, which is optimized for corn and soybeans rather than wheat. The proposed solution will include features for tracking cross-breeding experiments, managing labels, uploading data to SharePoint, and offering a streamlined training process.

I work in the agricultural R&D industry. One program we are required to use is called Variety: it logs experiments, plant crosses, and cross-references them to a SharePoint.

However, this program is not made to be used with wheat breeding experiments, it's made to be used with corn and soybeans. Variety poses quite a few issues:

• We cannot create our own unique tagging and identification system that will take an Excel file and convert it into a Word document for easy printing on Gardenware pot stick labels
• The program will change the labeling nomenclature of our crosses...which is not good when you need accurate records of all the crosses you made.
• Without Variety, we cannot upload the experiments into the SharePoint (this keeps track of plant materials that will be sent into the lab for genetic testing)
• There's no streamlined training process to get users going quickly into the system, especially if you work with a side crop like wheat.

A lot of wheat breeders have to custom-make their own Excel spreadsheets to keep track of the crosses made between plants or invest in cripplingly expensive breeding software. It would be great if there was a customized program that allows a lot of flexibility in arranging the breeding, keeping track of sample testing, printing labels, etc.

Unfortunately, not a lot of breeders are proficient with software development and would rather make an inefficient, incredibly large Excel table. If there was a program like this, I'd probably put $5000 into it and leverage it across the other wheat stations in our network.