Breeding Workshop: trials, selections, breeding methods

Variety Trials: breeding to see what works (and what doesn't)

Jim Myers extolled the benefits of on-farm trials in his pre-conference workshop. It turns out that with participatory plant breeding, a cooperative arrangement that appeals to my grassroots heart, the variety trial is central to understanding and developing a new crop for a particular area. Myers held up a copy of an old AFES variety trial publication as an example of the kind of information breeders need to know and develop. He explained that it was important for:

• getting to know the crop
• expanding market potential, attracting new customers
• addressing crop stresses
• identifying organic info
• on-farm variety trials for vegetables, herbs, etc. (Here Myers talked about a publication from the Organic Seed Alliance that he authored about creating on-farm experimental designs for useful variety trials. The OSA has many helpful publications on everything from policy to seed production, worksheets and webinars.)

There are two basic trial methods, the observation trial and the replicated trial.

Observation trials are okay for evaluating disease resistance or discrete traits (color growth, habit, fruit size and shape, earliness), productivity, and adaptation to the locale. An example might be planting one-row plots of 10-30 feet. Observation trials are repeated over years in the same place.

Replication trials remove variation casused by differences in the local environment & provide repeated measures. They require randomization, such as in the variety's placement within the plot.

Siting a trial: get as uniform a section as possible. Consider soils, wind direction, even elevation, shade, moisture/wet or dry spots.

Traits to evaluate depend upon intended use and kind of crop: processing, fresh market, home garden/

On-farm trials in their simplest form: plant several varieties side by side and keep notes. This requires planning!

On-farm trials II:
Arrange among a group of farmers to grow an extended set of varieties, each grower grows a set on their farm. The advantage here is that a broader set can be looked, but it requires not only more planning but also coordination, and it should include a common variety to serve as a yardstick. Varietal performance may be affected by differences in location and cultural practices, too.

NOVIC (or, see the Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collaborative)

Mother Daughter Experimental Design: this is a statistical plot design that maximizes the amount of information obtained from diverse environments.

mother site: complete randomized block design with at least three replications
daughter sites: single replicates on at least three collaborating farms

Where to find the genetic variation?

From commercial sources:

• seed catalogs
• Native Seed Search
• Seed Savers Exchange

Exchange with other growers:

• seed swaps
• community seed banks/libraries/sanctuaries

USDA-NPGS (GRIN):

• Plant introduction collection (not a catalog: up to you to maintain seed or accession acquired)
• NSL # is storage of last resort, very hard to get
• PVP; has to be deposited in GRIN, but not available until patent runs out
• Tomato Genetic Resource Collection (genetic stocks housed at UC Davis, regular tomatoes housed at Geneva, New York)

Methods of recombination:

• natural crossing
• artificial 
• selection methods: mass selection, half-sib selection, bulk breeding, pedigree selection, single-seed descent, backcross breeding

Myers went into detail about each of these, but in particular the methods of selection. The technical aspects of the workshop were impressive and I will leave them aside, as the detail was considerable, but for those who are interested in pursuing breeding vegetable varieties, he recommended a few books, among them:

Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving, by Carol Deppe.

The Organic Seed Grower:  A Farmer's Guide to Vegetable Seed Production, by John Navazio.

There is also a book he co-edited but did not mention, Organic Crop Breeding.

At the Food Policy Conference: Neighborhood to Nation in Portland

I'm in Portland, Oregon, attending the Neighborhood to Nation Food Policy Conference, sponsored by the Community Food Security Coalition. A few Alaskans are here: Bob Mikol (TA for Craig Gerlach's Comparative Farming and Sustainable Food Systems class, among other things), Danny Consenstein (Alaska Farm Service Agency), Alli Harvey (with the Alaska Center for the Environment's Local Food project), Diane Peck (Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Obesity Prevention and Chronic Disease Prevention), Rachel Garcia (intern with the Alaska Community Agriculture Association), Eleanor Wirts (UAF RAP grad student and musher), Johanna Herron (Alaska Farm to School), Mark Carper (UAA and the Alaska Food Policy Council), Kelsey Bearden (fellow student from Comparative Farming), Lisa Sadler-Hart (Sitka Local Foods Network), and myself (UAF School of Natural Resources & Agricultural Sciences, Ester Republic reporter and publisher, librarian, gardener, AK Food Policy Council member, Ester Community Association member, et cetera). I'm down here in large measure because of Gerlach, SNRAS dean Carol Lewis, and Diane Peck. There were others from Alaska, too (Danielle Giles, Nikos Pastos, and Ryan Zinn, but I didn't meet them--Zinn was a presenter, from the Fair World Project).

And I'm having a blast. This is a great group of people, a good 640 strong, from 46 states and DC, plus Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec. I attended a short course (Food Policy Advocacy 101) this morning and the plenary gathering this afternoon. The plenary speakers were great, talking about poverty, food deserts, exploited food service and other food industry workers (did you know that the federal minimum wage is only $2.13 an hour? ridiculous!), community gardens, community organizing. Talk about inspiring people.

After the plenary session, we broke out into networking groups, and Eleanor and I went with the Canadians while the rest of the Alaskans networked with the Northwest region. THAT was interesting. We told them we were crashing their party, and they accepted us with good grace and not a few jokes ("I can see Alaska from my house!"). The stereotype of the polite Canadian was not actually blown, despite a not-very-serious attempt to dispel it ("Fuck off!" from one speaker and apparently frequent Facebook poster (not sure if this was a joke, actually) at an opportune and humorous moment of self-teasing about being all polite--I guess you had to be there, but the whole group laughed). There was much emphasis on relationships between people, talking about developing mutual trust and respect between food producers and others in the food system. I was struck by the quiet, polite, and respectful discourse, along with the deep level of political savvy and pronounced opinon concerning the recent majority government positioning of Steven Harper and his party in the Canadian federal government. Very different in approach and delivery than US types, but lots of zing and pow (quite politely phrased, though)!

I've met a lot of fascinating people with great projects and amazing accomplishments. One man, Raymond Figueroa, from New York City, is working with a community gardening project (Friends of Brook Park) taking on abandoned spaces and turning them into a way to give locals control over their food and a way to make a difference in their own lives, to bring dignity back.