North Dakota leads the nation in the production of 13 crops. Genetic improvement as a consequence of plant breeding has been a major factor driving North Dakota (ND) production agriculture which generates more than $4.0 billion annually in cash receipts. Because of the importance of numerous crops to the state's economy, a strong interdisciplinary research and education program has been ongoing at NDSU to develop superior adapted varieties and to train the next generation of plant breeders. During the past 5-10 years, there has been a very serious erosion of plant breeding programs at universities in the education and the training of future plant breeders. Because of the strong demand from the commercial sector for field breeders, a critical mass of plant breeders is essential to meet the future demands for increased crop productivity and value. NDSU is already prepared with an Applied Plant Breeding Institute (APBI), over 15 graduate plant breeding classes (see http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/plantsci/undrcour.htm), and 14 plant breeding programs (hard red and hard white spring wheat, durum wheat, six-rowed barley and two-rowed barley, oat, corn, flax, soybean, potato, dry edible bean, crambe, sugarbeet, sunflower, and pulse crops) managed by 14.7PYs. The APBI is unique in the nation because of the tremendous plant breeding and genetics expertise available at NDSU that is accompanied with a large diversity of crops grown in the state. The NDSU plant-breeding programs are especially recognized for the successful variety and germplasm releases (over 90 releases in the past five years, for more information per crop and year see http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/plantsci/breeding/releases.htm) worth millions of dollars and on training applied plant breeders for both public and private sectors. The Applied Plant Breeding Institute (APBI) was initiated in 2003 and approved in 2007. We are soliciting private sector investment.