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Post by PatrickW on Sept 28, 2010 0:02:05 GMT -8
toads.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/organic-plant-breeding-in-denmark/This is someone I sort of know in Denmark, Anders Borgens, who grows and breeds grains. He is growing a spelt variety I gave him, as well as Tim Peters per rye. He has contact with Edith (I can't remember her last name) at Louis Bolk. He might be a good person to get in touch with concerning any possible future grain breeding projects.
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Post by Tom Wagner on Sept 28, 2010 14:48:23 GMT -8
I watched and listened to Anders via the video.
I used to grow many tiny plots like his back in Kansas. He collects from the Nordic Gene bank and from folks like you, Patrick.
The four locations where I will be sowing the various grains will be used to build up interesting grains: historic, Kansas wheats, triticale, breeding lines, blends, and some perennial grains as well. This will be done for a number of reasons.
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Research. Featuring off types, natural hybrids, single head to row increase, developing facultive wheat (Selecting winter/facultative wheat genotypes from historic or spring spring crosses), etc. I live in an area that does not get the coldest of winters, and reselecting spring sown grains with alternately sown fall and then spring....may allow the various grains to be more versatile My collection of Pacific Bluestem that survived a very wet late summer and much sprouting of the wheat in the head will be planted soon. It was one of the wheat lines that has a history of being grown both as a spring and winter wheat right here in Washington state.
Food. A number of wheat varieties that are special will be increased for sample flour and cereal performance and the remaining bulked to go to big fields for the following years
Seed sales. There should be a growing interest in folks like myself to provide larger sample of grain than what the USDA can provide.
Breeder/Grower club. Someone has to start the nucleus for regional wheat breeding and/or selection work. Nothing has been formalized yet, but if I can help save a few years of tedious grow-outs and increase of seed, the club can be on it's feet running whenever that club starts.
Exchange of diversity. If I could find ways to trade seed with folks like Patrick and Anders.....a mutual build up of interesting grains could spread all over.
Tom Wagner
BTW, Edith Lammerts van Bueren is the lady you are thinking of, Patrick... here is a blurb....
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Post by PatrickW on Sept 29, 2010 10:22:22 GMT -8
Actually, I was invited to join such an 'club' a year or two back. A group of people did some research on what were varieties grown here in the past, found them in genebanks and got some samples. This included a number of different vegetables, as well as some corn.
The idea was their efforts were to be used to produce seeds to sell, as well as food to be sold via some local restaurants. One of the associated businesses was a sort of camping retreat, where the idea was you spent the weekend in a bunglow and during your stay were fed historic foods.
There were some immediate cultural clashes, so I didn't join them. There was also no breeding or selection efforts in what they were doing, so I suspect they were having a hard time getting enough crops to sell and they were just producing 'seeds' if you know what I mean. Really, my biggest problem was I couldn't find anything productive in what they were working on, and as the outsider they wanted me to join and help them, but they weren't really going to take any of my advice to heart.
I think they are still together as a group, probably still working on the same sorts of things.
They are funded, that's for sure. One thing I heard was money was available for them to include the varieties they were working on on official seed lists, so they became legal to sell. The person we were talking about recently in email provided part or all of the funding for this. I think he might be interested in funding another similar effort on our part, if we could present a reasonable business model for it and figure out what sort of funding we might need...
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Post by Tom Wagner on Sept 29, 2010 21:40:44 GMT -8
Simultaneously, but feeling like it is subcutaneously injected, I am trying to do several things at the same time. I have to keep the research alive and well in potato and tomato breeding. But going back to selecting grains, corns, etc., is done to broaden the base for non-profit, for profit, breeder/grower clubs, and other involvements...... is being performed to gather cooperators. I suppose there has to be some level of autonomy even if there is a desire for group participation. One has to be a strong stand-alone seedsman despite anything the group does.
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Post by PatrickW on Sept 30, 2010 0:05:53 GMT -8
But going back to selecting grains, corns, etc., is done to broaden the base for non-profit, for profit, breeder/grower clubs, and other involvements...... is being performed to gather cooperators. I suppose there has to be some level of autonomy even if there is a desire for group participation. One has to be a strong stand-alone seedsman despite anything the group does. My point exactly. A group has to take advantage of both the interests and skills of the individuals, or it isn't anything anyone will believe in or want to join. It has to be something that operates according to some degree of mutual benefit. A group can have beginners and experienced people, but everyone has to find their own place and manage their own contribution. This club I was talking about was formed with the idea of making a profit, and running as a business. To me it looked disfunctional, and I think it probably was. There was just an immediate clash of philosophy. It's all kind of a long story but it started because they published a list of varieties they had seeds for on the Internet. Some of these were very rare, and came from a private collection that was no longer being maintained by it's owner. I think many of these varieties don't exist anywhere else, and are in danger of being lost. Some are historic Dutch and English varieties. It's worth mentioning too, at the time, there was an intense interest in older varieties. Varieties like the ones you create were not perceived as interesting. I was encouraged by one of it's members to ask for some seeds, so I did. I was open to all of the usual things I thought would go with such a request, perhaps a payment or trade or something. In effect what they told me was they were a closed group, and only members had access to their seeds. Their future, to-be-determined business model, was based on an exclusive collection of varieties no one else had. If I got seeds from them I might have to promise not to share them with others. In order to join them, I was REQUIRED to pick one or more varieties from their list in order to growout and make more seeds for their private collection. This list had been throughly picked over and what was left was either not very interesting, or was difficult to grow for seed; mostly biennials or otherwise needing large populations. As much as I would have been happy to help maintain some rare Dutch varieties, I didn't really have space at the time for what they wanted me to grow, nor was I really interested in growing something I couldn't share with others. I couldn't conceive of how their business model was going to work. I wasn't going to promise to grow anything for them without meeting and getting to know them first, or without fully understanding all the underlying issues. In spite of the fact that we couldn't agree to the terms of a seed trade, I offered to come to their annual meeting and meet them. I thought we might consider working together somehow in the future. They never answered that email. I certainly won't rule out working with them sometime, but I think this is most likely to be as one organization working with another, rather than me being a member of their group. I suspect this is their position too. My feeling is any business model for a group like this has to be based more on evolving and improved varieties, rather than an exclusive collection of varieties no one else has. For example, with grains, it may simply be the availability of certain varieties in bulk for any given year. If it takes 3-5 years to bulk up on something for a large scale planting, we simply need to be ready to have something new and better every 3-5 years. |
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Post by PatrickW on Oct 2, 2010 16:32:16 GMT -8
I've just come across the name of someone in the Netherlands who has been growing out an old Dutch wheat variety from a genebank, with the intention of bringing it back to market. They are going to start on several other cereals this year. They are doing selection, but no breeding...
When I get a chance, I'll get in touch with them...
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