Breeding Late Blight Resistant Potatoes for Organic Farming—a Collaborative Model of Participatory Plant Breeding: the Bioimpuls Project

In organic potato production, the need for varieties with durable late blight resistance developed through classical breeding programmes is urgent. Besides late blight resistance, other variety characteristics needed in organic potato production are early canopy closure for weed suppression and good tuber dormancy to eliminate the need for (chemical) sprouting inhibition during storage, amongst others. This paper is a unique example of collaboration between researchers, farmers and professional breeders of both large, medium and small breeding companies. The aim of the resulting breeding project, Bioimpuls, was to provide a substantial impulse to both the organic and conventional potato breeding sector by enlarging the access to various sources of late blight resistance. The Bioimpuls activities include providing true seed populations for variety selection with five available sources of R-genes against Phytophthora infestans, early and advanced introgression breeding with six new R-genes, and education and communication. The results achieved over the 11-year period (2009–2019) are analysed. Many true seed populations containing multiple resistance genes are produced and selected, and a constant flow of breeding clones is entering the evaluation and positioning trials of companies. However, it will still take a considerable amount of time before varieties with stacked resistance genes will replace the new resistant single gene varieties entering the market in the next few years. Five out of six new sources of R-genes need more years of backcrossing before they are ready for commercial use. Bioimpuls successfully introduced a training course for farmer breeders, and published a manual for potato breeding.

Sensory Analyses and Nutritional Qualities of Wheat Population Varieties Developed by Participatory Breeding

Wheat is a staple food in many diets and is currently cultivated worldwide. It provides a large proportion of the daily energy intake and contributes to food balance. Changes in agro-industrial practices in the bread sector, from the field to bread-making, have led to an increase in chronic diseases and nutritional deficits, emphasizing the link between food and health. Several levers could be used to improve the nutritional quality of bread wheat. Organic farming, by avoiding the use of pesticides, might allow for greater consumption of wholegrain products. Breeding wheat cultivars with an enhanced mineral content may serve as another lever. In this context, the on-farm participatory plant-breeding of highly diversified varieties could provide promising resources. This study investigated the sensory and nutritional quality of nine population varieties resulting from a ten-year participatory plant-breeding process compared to two commercial pure-line varieties. Analysis of variance showed genotype effects for Mg and Zn concentration, so breeding for a high Mg and Zn concentration can reasonably be envisaged. Moreover, a positive correlation was found between plant height, peduncle height (distance between the Last Leaf and Spike (LLSD)) and nutrient content. Finally, as population varieties express more differences in their profile when grown in less fertile soils, these results emphasize the benefits of genetic diversity for diverse nutritional intake and sensory properties.

Exploring the emergence of participatory plant breeding in countries of the Global North – a review

Participatory plant breeding (PPB), commonly applied in the Global South to address the needs of underserved farmers, refers to the active collaboration between researchers, farmers and other actors throughout the breeding process. In spite of significant public and private investments in crop variety improvement in the Global North, PPB is increasingly utilized as an approach to address cropping system needs. The current study conducted a state-of-the-art review, including a comprehensive inventory of projects and five case studies, to explore the emergence of PPB in the Global North and inform future PPB efforts. Case studies included maize (Zea mays), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), Brassica crops (Brassica oleracea), wheat (Triticum aestivum) and potato (Solanum tuberosum). The review identified 47 projects across the United States, Canada and Europe including 22 crop species representing diverse crop biology. Improved adaptation to organic farming systems and addressing principles and values of organic agriculture emerged as consistent themes. While projects presented evidence that PPB has expanded crop diversity and farmer's access to improved varieties, obstacles to PPB also emerged including challenges in sustained funding as well as addressing regulatory barriers to the commercial distribution of PPB varieties. Agronomic improvements were only one lens motivating PPB, with many projects identifying goals of conservation of crop genetic diversity, farmers' seed sovereignty and avoidance of certain breeding techniques. The authors conclude that a multidisciplinary approach is needed to fully understand the social, political and agroecological influences driving the emergence of projects in the Global North and factors impacting success.

Participatory plant breeding programs to optimize use of crop genetic resources

This chapter summarizes a sample of variety evaluation, experimental design, and breeding method innovations that have served as solid approaches for participatory plant breeding (PPB) efforts. With success in PPB comes success in conservation at a local level of useful alleles and allele assemblages in the form of on-farm crop genetic resources. PPB programs of this sort have the potential to add value to local or traditional varieties that might otherwise be abandoned, thus promoting their in situ conservation. This chapter briefly touches on methodologies to assess farmers’ variety preferences. This is followed by sections that highlight some experimental designs for on-farm variety evaluation and farmer-participatory breeding methods for combining in-situ conservation with genetic improvement. Finally, some of the challenges that may limit genetic gain from PPB programs are noted – problems that increase the risk of wholesale replacement of on-farm genetic diversity rather than conservation through improvement.

Maize Breeding in the Highlands of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia: A Review

Maize is one of the most important staple crops in the highlands of the Andean region of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Most seeds come from landraces, with their own kernel characteristics. The kernels are used for the elaboration of traditional dishes and other elaborates for human consumption. In this region, maize breeding is conducted mainly by public institutions. In this review, we outline the methodology that has been used by the maize breeding programs (MBPs) of the National Institutes for Agricultural Research and other institutions in the highlands of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia during the last 20 years. The main objective of MBPs in the region has been to develop more uniform and productive open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) of floury maize (Zea mays L. var. Amylacea), which is the most important type of maize in the area. Participatory plant breeding, combined with half-sib, has been used to breed new maize varieties. At least 18 OPVs of floury maize have been released into the Andean region in the last 20 years. Breeding this type of maize has been very important to conserve diversity and promote consumption in the region, but they have had very little impact on yield. The yield of floury maize is around three times below that of dent or semident maize grown in the region. Therefore, there is a need to apply new breeding techniques in the region to accelerate the development of more productive floury-maize cultivars.

Opportunities and challenges for improving a Colombian public research program in plant breeding and plant genetic resources lead by Agrosavia

Agrosavia (Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria) is the Colombian state institution in charge of the agricultural research at the national level, including plant breeding. Since 2014, Agrosavia started to increase its research staff and has reset the leadership of public research to solve the needs of the agricultural sector population, focusing on small producers. However, the current team working on plant breeding and plant genetic resources are facing some challenges associated with generation gaps and the lack of a collaborative working plan for the next years. To identify the opportunities and actions in this research area, we surveyed all the 52 researchers working in Agrosavia in this area in 2017. We analyzed the opinions of researchers to detect the strengths and weaknesses of the program using a sentiment score. We also examined the networking to test both how consolidated the group is and if among top leaders are gender parity and also have a higher academic degree. Results showed that there is a mixed community of old and new researchers with clear gender bias in the proportion of male-female. Within the network, the interactions are weak, with several subgroups where the top-ten of both central leaders and the most influencer are frequently males with mostly an M.Sc. degree but with significant experience in the area. Researchers have an interest in 31 crops. From them, 26 are in the national germplasm bank, but this bank is not the primary source for their breeding programs. The top-five of plants with increasing interest are corn, cocoa tree, golden berries, oil palm, and sugarcane. Researchers also want to establish collaborations with 54 different institutions, where the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, which is the top public university in the country, is on the head. Researchers also perceived weaknesses in the marker-assisted selection, experimental design, and participatory plant breeding, but those criticisms have a positive sentiment score average of 1.55 (0.3 SE) across 31 texts analyzed. Based on all results, we identified five critical strategic principles to improve the plant-breeding research program. They include a gender diversity policy to hire new researchers strategically to reduce the gender gap and strength the generational shift. Better collaboration between the national germplasm bank and plant breeding research. A coordinate plan where the studies focus on food security crops that the government supports independently of market trends. And finally, adequate spaces for the project’s design and training programs. Hence, we recommend the creation of a consultant group to implement these policies progressively in the next years.