Trialing and seed increase of promising new vegetable varieties for organic systems

Investigator: Michael Mazourek, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Project location: upstate New York

Summary:
Organic growers have different requirements for the crops they grow that are not adequately addressed by conventional agriculture research or variety development. Previous grants from OFRF, USDA-SARE and USDA-OREI provided funding for us to develop improved vegetable varieties for organic producers. Through this process, we worked closely with this community to identify their needs and utilized resources developed at Cornell and by our collaborators to develop new varieties that represent improvements based on criteria developed by organic growers.

Pollination cages that were in part funded by OFRF on our Freeville Organic Farm. Each has a hive of bees inside pollinating the crops. Photo by Shannon Mazourek.

Participatory breeding approaches were a key element of our progress because they allowed plant selection in the actual environment in which the crops would be grown and by the customers of producers. These vegetable varieties were based on varieties that were already valued by our organic partners for flavor and quality, and added the earliness, disease resistance and yield traits that were requested to improve producer profitability. For these products to realize their full benefit and impact, they need final evaluations of the finished crops by a broad range of organic producers to select which of the multiple iterations of each variety is the most suited to their needs.

Objectives of this project are:

1. To produce seed of 3 melon, 3 squash and 3 cucumber varieties in sufficient quantity to distribute to organic producers;
2. To distribute stock seed to collaborating growers and seed companies;
3. Collect and compile grower feedback;
4. Recommend production of identified varieties to seed companies.

To send seed to a core group of organic producers and seed companies, a supply of healthy and organically produced seed is required for distribution in the first year. The results of evaluations in the second year will be compiled, disseminated and communicated to seed companies to leverage their adoption of the varieties that would be most desirable by organic growers. The advantage of this approach will be the growers’ ability to select the seeds they would like to have available to them, and do so with a unified voice. The resulting partnership with organic seed companies will result in the maintenance, advertisement and distribution of these grower-requested seeds to a much larger group of beneficiaries than those involved in this study.

A final report describing the results of this project is expected in July 2010.