Seed Conference Workshop Descriptions

8:00 Registration and Tea
8:15 Introduction - CR Lawn

Why are we here? In a time when most universities are fazing out traditional plant breeding programs for biotech, Restoring Our Seed was established to encourage seed production and crop improvement in northern New England. We're here to work together to learn how to grow better seed more efficiently, and to improve our varieties to thrive in our cool rainy NE climate.

8:30 Seed Basics - Rowen White

As we begin exploring the complex and dynamic world of crop improvement and breeding, this workshop will introduce us to the living partnership between plants and people in indigenous seed-saving traditions, and present the basics of seed-saving. It will cover the biology of plant sex, botanical classification, flower structure, pollination, hybridization, and the vital role of healthy relationships in the seed-farm-ecosystem

9:00 Whole Farm Seed Systems - Frank Morton

Farms are ecosystems. Adding seed to the crop mix has a big effect on the agroecosystem. Before seeds come flowers, with flowers come food for a whole new web of life that adds complexity to vegetative landscapes. Beneficial insects that feed on and parasitize pest species usually require nectar and pollen to complete their life cycles, and many vegetable and herb species serve this requirement well. Seed crops can be integrated into vegetable production by several strategies, including double-cropping leafy vegetables and herbs, and intercropping seed crops as field partitions, borders, and seasonal hedgerows. The mature tissues of seedbearing crops fix more carbon for soil food than vegetative crops or green manures. The longstanding nature of seed plots create islands of shelter and stability within the frequent community upheavals that characterize the vegetable farm ecosystem. Complex floral communities of non-crossing seed crop species can form ecological guilds that provide benefits to one another and surrounding crops. Growing seed creates new opportunities for species interaction on the farm, and can lead to novel effects and influences, including creation or discovery of original new crops.

10:00 BREAK
10:15 Reproductive Biology Outline­ John Navazio
Learning the basic mechanics of reproductive biology is very important in understanding how best to maximize yield and quality of the seed you produce. This section will emphasize the biological steps that always occur when seed is produced and will help you trouble shoot any problems that may occur when growing seed.

10:45 Selfers and Crossers Outline­ John Navazio
Strategies used to grow, select, and improve varieties of self-pollinated crop species versus cross-pollinated species can be quite different for the seed grower. The population size, intensity and season of selection, as well as the method of seed harvest can be radically different between these two groups. We will explore the divergent methods used for growing seed of selfers and crossers in very practical terms for the farm.

12:00 LUNCH

Afternoon
1:00 Brainstorm: What do we need to learn here?

Discussions will involve farmers in deciding which traits are important to improve and which diseases and pests to select against- to build farmer-based breeding partnerships in New England.

1:30 Crop Improvement - Dr. Mark Hutton

Farmers have been improving crops long before there was formal training in plant breeding. Any good farmer can make a list of the important traits a cultivar should have in order to have a place on their farm. Using information from this past summer's Restoring Our Seed demonstration crop improvement fields, we'll discuss in practical terms the art of crop improvement.

2:30 What is Durable Resistance? Dr. Raoul Robinson

Comparison of resistance-breeding based on single gene vertical resistance, and breeding based on multi-gene durable resistance.

Vertical resistance is based on a"gene-for-gene" model of host-parasite interactions, where every pathogen has a gene for parasitic ability and every host has a resistance gene. This is similiar to a"lock-and-key" where the parasite gene is the key and the host gene is the lock. If the key fits, the parasite gains entry to the host, or the lock holds and the parasite is excluded. Unfortunately, as soon as new genes for resistance are bred or bio-engineered into a plant, the pathogen evolves to overcomes the resistance. The evolved pathogen-key then gains easy entry to mono-genetic resistance.

Durable resistance, on the other hand, is quantitative. Traits are results of multiple-linked genes. Durable resistance is developed over generations of mass selection of large populations of a crop variety under the pressure of the strains of all local pathogens. The durable resistance produced in plants that survive local disease and pest field challenges is a complex and resiliant resistance. Durable resistance is flexible and long-lasting, and greatly reduces the need for pesticides.

3:00 BREAK

3:15 Selecting for Healthy Seed Crops Outline­ John Navazio and Frank Morton
aka (Field Selection For Disease Resistance)

This workshop covers the theory and practice of crop improvement by field selection under environmental challenge. Dr. Navazio will cover the principles involved in setting up and maintaining a disease nursery to permit effective selection for resistance. He will also discuss how to discover what your disease problems really are. Frank Morton will describe his on-farm disease nursery research in lettuce, funded by a grant from Organic Farming Research Foundation. Morton will also describe how to select improved stock seed for future seed production while improving the quality of standing commercial seed crops, using lettuce and kale as examples.

1) Setting-up and maintaining a disease nursery -John
We will explore the fundamental steps in establishing a disease nursery in the field, which requires; a) the presence of the disease in your area, b) determining if you can make progress against the disease in your crop, and c) your ability to distinguish differences in levels of resistance in the varieties you grow.
2) How to decide which diseases are a real problem in your crop ­ John
While there are many diseases that can appear in our crops which are the ones that really affect the yield or quality of the crops that we grow? We will explore how to assess which diseases are most important for our crops in a particular bioregion and which are most important for the farmers that may use our seeds near and far alike.
3) Screening lettuce in "Hell's Half Acre" ­ Frank
4) Selecting improved stockseed from production plots ­ Frank


4:15 Small Groups:
Seeding with Nature - Frank Morton

The soil holds an engrained memory of the landscape that persists, come what may. The seedbank encodes the likely successor ecology to any catastrophe; fire, flood, ice or plow. As seed crops become part of the agroecology, they also become part of the seedling flush that follows tillage. The sensitive farmer and most gardeners can use this predictable post-tillage upwelling to create wild gardens of seasonally adapted crops and edible wildlings. These volunteer guilds are also opportunities to find exceptional individuals, novel varietal crosses, and uniquely adapted lines of striving genotypes. Ecological breeding in the extreme. A discussion on the habits, help, and hazards of volunteers.

Large Scale Crop Improvement ­ Tom Sterns and John Navazio
There are many aspects of crop improvement that can be addressed with production seed crops in the field. Tom Stearns of High Mowing Seeds has encountered many issues concerning producing vegetable seed crops with the best possible varietal purity on a field scale with growers in New England. Tom will present many of these topics as questions for John and open them for group discussion.

5:00 Seed-borne Pathogens- Dr. Robert Wick

A seed-borne pathogen is any infectious agent associated with seed that can cause disease in the developing seedling or plant. We will look at externally and internally-borne pathogen routes and mechanisms.

6:15 DINNER on your own

7:45 Conducting Trials; Slide Show and Presentation ­ John Navazio
Evaluating the crops you are working on in a replicated trial is often the most practical and easiest way to get a fair assessment of the varieties you grow. This session will explain the basic mechanics of conducting a trial which can help you determine which crops or varieties are the earliest, have the best quality traits, produce the most seed, or have the highest resistance to diseases or insects. Slides of successful trials both large and small will be shown with many practical tips on layout, execution, choice of varieties, and methods of "reading" or scoring the trial will be shown. We hope for lots of input from the attendees during this session!

8:00 Wild Garden Seed Ecology - Frank Morton

The simple principle of wild gardening is to move over and let the wild things do a little work in your garden. A niche--as pest, predator, parasite, or plant--is just a job. Allow for plenty of work. Feed your allies with flowers and fecundity. Create frameworks for successful cultivation and management of crops, then let nature fill the wide cracks with cohorts. Weeds are soil food, serve young. Spiders love mulch and much else. Pollinating insects also provide pest control. Wasps are on patrol. Seedheads are the insect Seringetti. The more species of flowers, the more species of insects. Time and shelter. Many species make a guild, and a guild makes an isolation. How many seed crops can fit in the head of a gardener? Many happy accidents!

9:00 Selecting for Disease and Pest Resistance - Dr. Robinson

Robinson and other breeders have shown that horizontal resistance can be developed and is durable in potatoes, coffee, corn, and beans. From a discussion of the general history of late blight during the great Irish Potato Famine, Dr. Robinson will describe case studies of the challenges and successes in breeding for durable resistance.

10:00 Discussion and Questions

10:30 BREAK

11:00 Small Groups:
- Developing a ROS Crop Improvement Project with Dr. Robinson

We will discuss possible new directions and solutions to the shortcomings in the current reliance on vertical resistance in crop protection. Participants will explore establishing a ROS team with plant breeders, farmers and cooperative extension to develop durable resistance for a local crop. We will invite university and college participants to involve their students in our hands-on breeding project.

- Ecological Breeding - Frank Morton

The emergence of agriculture was a natural consequence of species interaction once seeds were held in vessels. The evolution of crop plants. Markers of domestication in crops. What is a variety, and how long can it last? All variation warrants attention. Inducing variation. Seeing good potential in a natural setting of bad performance. Selecting under the worst conditions you can provide. Breeding for the worst, preparing for the best. Consequences of breeding for the First Lady. Unending novelty. Pigments of the imagination-all good. Resistance; perchance to breed vertically or horizontally? What would an ecologist do? The temptations of perfection, the slap of experience. The next frontier is breeding for symbiosis-to liken corn to lichen.

12:00 LUNCH

Afternoon
1:00 What can Extension do? Mark Hutton

Sad to say ­ the short answer is at this time not much. Seed production and participatory plant breeding are old ideas that have become new. For the most part there is little expertise within extension to help you today. This can be changed! Folks in extension want to help and are excited about new ideas and projects. So, participate in this workshop to make your needs known! Those of us in extension want to work with seed growers to become a valued resource.

1:45 Presentations: PSI, Tom, Rowen, Jeremy, Kelvin

3:00 Break

3:15 Seed Cleaning - Tom Stearns

Tom will describe the various tools and techniques required for a range of scale (from backyard gardener to commercial seed farm) for seed threshing and seed cleaning. We will cover both wet seed (tomatoes, squash cucumbers) and dry seed ( beans, brassicas, lettuce, flowers. Bring your practical questions and samples of seeds to look at together.

4:00 Action-Planning - Where do we go from here?

4:30 SEED EXCHANGE