Collaborative Breeding for and in Organic Systems

Collaborative Breeding for and in Organic Systems

Summary

Organic varieties are the missing link in the organic production chain. Organic agriculture is currently reliant on conventionally bred varieties, and among these the variety choices are dwindling due to global changes and consolidation in the seed industry. Farmers can be excellent breeders when given the resources and knowledge. By linking public breeders with organic growers and organic seed companies and doing collaborative on-farm breeding, new organic varieties will be developed that meet farmers’ needs. This will lead to greater sustainability for the organic farming community in the northeast.

We will begin the project by having a series of regional organic breeding roundtable sessions that will bring together organic farmers, breeders, and seed companies. They will brainstorm to come up with critical organic breeding needs that will form the foundation for deciding on six collaborative on-farm organic breeding projects. Breeders will work with six growers to collaborate on six organic breeding projects. These projects will be carried out starting in the spring of 2005 and culminating at the end of the grant with six advanced breeding populations. On-farm twilight tours will involve growers throughout the project to help educate them in organic breeding and have them participate in the selection and breeding of the new varieties.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Through 3 variety roundtables a minimum of 6 growers, 3 regional seed companies, and 3 public breeders will collaboratively develop a minimum of 6 advanced breeding populations that will meet growers’ variety needs and improve their long-term sustainability and viability.

Accomplishments/Milestones

This fall we held three organic breeding roundtables in Maine, New York, and Pennsylvania. We also had a shorter organic breeding brainstorming discussion at the Restoring Our Seed conference in Brattleboro, Vermont. A total of 56 farmers, 5 breeders, and 7 seed company representatives participated in these successful brainstorming sessions. The roundtables involved farmers, breeders, and seed companies coming together to discuss what new and improved vegetable varieties organic farmers need. This involved growers sharing how they make variety choices for their farms including what traits are important, what vegetables groups need the most improvement and what their main challenges are for each important vegetable group. The growers then came up with three different lists of varieties that would help them. This included: varieties that are no longer available but growers still want to use, varieties that are very good but need some improvement, and new varieties with unique characteristics that need developing.

Completing these roundtables fulfilled the requirements of Milestone 1. We involved 56 growers rather than our predicted 60 but found having slightly smaller groups worked very well in the roundtable discussions.

We are currently working through the results of the roundtables to develop the six breeding projects. As outlined in Milestone 2, we will be contacting interested growers over the next two months to recruit organic farmers for the sites for the six organic breeding projects. At the roundtables we asked growers if they would be interested in participating and having breeding projects on their farms. Many growers throughout the regions expressed interest. Breeding projects will start in the spring of 2005.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Growers had a lot to say when it came to the issues of varieties for organic farming as well as organic seed. Most of the growers participating in the discussions were farmers growing fewer than 25 acres of vegetables and marketing either direct to consumers or direct to wholesale accounts like restaurants and supermarkets. Generally growers were most concerned about traits such as taste, disease and insect resistance, and the ability to obtain good marketable yields in the challenging farming conditions of the Northeast. Of equal concern was the quality of the organic seed which certified organic growers are required to use according to current USDA Organic regulations. Many growers shared stories of frustrations and problems they have had with organic seed including varieties not being true to type, poor germination, and poor vigor. This reiterated the importance of working with seed companies and growers to work at increasing the consistency and quality of all organic seed.

We are currently compiling lists of new varieties to develop, current varieties to improve, and old varieties to try to bring back. We will try to work with the companies that discontinued these varieties to either have them bring them back or have them licensed to another company. Growers lamented the passing of such varieties as Burgundy Delight sweet corn, Indian Summer spinach, and King Richard leek. Farmers throughout the roundtables were fairly consistent in some of their wishes. Many asked for a better open-pollinated broccoli- especially one for fall production, a pepper that colors up earlier in the summer, a sweet onion that stores a little longer, and good tasting tomatoes that have increased disease resistance.

Once we finish compiling the results of the roundtables and the results of a breeding survey sent out to New York farmers in 2004 we will share the results with everyone that has participated as well as additional breeders and seed companies that may be able to serve organic farmers in the Northeast.

Collaborators: