Plant breeding need not be the high-tech, white-coated affair many people think it is. After all, for most of the history of agriculture, it wasn’t. Serious amateurs, in the true sense of the word, can make huge contributions.
We’ve written before about Rebsie Fairholm‘s pea breeding. Two others doing fine work are Rhizowen and Tom Wagner, and there are new accounts of both of their endeavours. Rhizowen modestly claims to have “the largest collection of oca germplasm in the whole county of Cornwall” as he brings us up to date with his efforts to breed a better Andean tuber. Tom Wagner’s speciality is the Solanaceae; we have him to thank for Green Zebra tomato, and many others. A current project is to breed a potato more resistant to late blight disease. The high-tech, white-coated gene jockeys are attempting the same trick, and Patrick at Bifurcated Carrots compares and contrasts the two approaches. While I don’t agree with everything he says, I do agree that a coordinated and widespread effort by amateur growers to assess Tom Wagner’s crosses is a fine idea. Patrick says that the UK trials of GM blight-resistant potatoes have a security fence that cost GBP20,000 and a 24 hour security guard. “If we had the money invested in the UK security fence alone, we could dramatically expand our trials not to mention offset some of our expenses,” he points out.
Where are the participatory plant breeding wallahs when you need them?
Thanks for the shout-out. Indeed Rhizowen is doing fantastic work with root crops and has a most entertaining way of writing about them.
And here’s a video on the joys of open pollination.
This really is the future of agriculture. Fortifying local foodsheds with bio-regionally adapted new varieties adapted to evolving circumstances and squirelled away from catastrophic events. Plant breeders are poping up everywhere and it’s no longer just a matter of tomatoes, potatoes, and sweet corn. Grains adapted to small holdings are gaining a foothold; rye, uplant rice, wheat, triticale and perrinials of those varieties. It seems more people are also exploring the far more esoteric world of breeding perrinial fruiting crops as well.