Why so many old cultivars of peas, beans and swede but no white cabbage, carrots and onions? Annette Hägnefelt, Senior Scientist NordGen

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1 Why so many old cultivars of peas, beans and swede but no white cabbage, carrots and onions? Annette Hägnefelt, Senior Scientist NordGen

2 My seed experience Worked about ~ 20 years with plant breeding Iceberg lettuce, carrot, spinach, Brassicas Variety listing, seed propagation, variety maintenance Worked about ~ 10 years with commercial seed business

3 My presentation Give one possible answer to the question in the title Pay attention to the challenges in producing seed of open-pollinated (OP) vegetables Why keeping the OP s? Why thinking of User Genebank?

4 Why so many old cultivars in Fröuppropet of peas, beans and swede but no white cabbage, carrots and onions? One possible answer: Selfpollinated Crosspollinated

5 Plants multiplication strategies Self-pollinators Offspring identical with parent homozygous - Pure lines Cross-pollinators Offspring divers heterozygous Inbreeding risk Openpollinated (OP) cultivars F 1 -hybrids produced by crossing inbred parental lines

6 Seed multiplication a challenge for OP s! Self-pollinators 5-15 plants depending on how uniform the population is Cross-pollinators (OP s) - preferably 100 plants, 60 pl. are good, a minimum

7 The key success factors are good isolation facilities and hard-working insects or a mild breeze and enough distance

8 Why can t NordGen be the user genebank? NordGen s mandate and operation Conservation and utilization Fixed budget - limited resources Staff Technical and economical resources NordGen grows yearly ~ species Few of them of common interest We harvest and clean minimun amounts Lack of space, freezers get ful Demand is higher than availability Seed overplus is discarded This is a paradox

9 What is seed companies doing? Commercial seed business F1-hybrids Uniformity Global varieties Large scale multiplication Novelties Resistant varieties Seed health guarantee Pills, priming, filmcoat, precision etc. House-hold multiplication - no Genebank Open pollinated cultivars Heterogenity Local cultivars Small scale multiplication Diversity Crop wild relatives Normal seed variable size House-hold multiplic. - yes

10 Next Fröuppropet 2102 Seed propagation is a common handicraft that has lived over generations Open pollinated- as well as self-pollinated crops are maintained by our grandgrandgrandgrand children There is a stable demand over time for local-, niche-, specialties-, or heritage cultivars Home produced seed has been used as survival food when normal food chain supply was disrupted

11 Thank you for your attention

12 Varieties on the CPVO-list Tomato 3741 Lettuce Onion 1015 Cucumber 852 Cauliflower White cabbage 713 Carrot 577 Leek 222 Redbeet AH

13 Challenges for NordGen Many crops Annuals, biennials, perennials Different wishes of soiltype Crop specific management strategies Diverse pollination strategy self, insect, wind Isolations by distance Isolations by net/glasshouse Crop rotation soilborne diseases Different threshing techniques Different seed cleaning techniques Etc.

14 Seed quality Authorities Correct variety Clean seed - free from debris and other species Stipulated germination rate Seed business Free from seed borne diseases Guaranteed resistance to specific diseases

15 Why keeping the OP s? My professor once said: When you find a new race of a disease you can just serch for resistance in the genpool of a crosspollinator - and you will find it!

16 Kontrakterad fröproduktion Danmark Frankrike Italien USA Chile Australien

17 Why user genbank? We spread the knowledge Sometimes we have to discard material We harvest and clean minimun amounts NordGens seed surplus can be used and not discarded Sometimes we need larger amount m Cereals which yield few seeds/plant NordGen have a shortage

18 Morot 50 g frö/pl = frö Utsäde frö/ha = frö från 20 plantor I Sverige odlas 1800 ha morot = frö från plantor, som endast har skördats på 360 m frö kostar i handeln kr Utsäde till hela Sverige kostar ca kr Lönsamheten handlar om volymer

19 Self pollinating cultivars are homozygous Flower is a hermaphrodite - pollinates itself Wheat, barley, oat Lettuce,tomato Pea, bean Offspring is identical with parent

20 Cross pollinators are heterozygous They do anything to avoid self pollination Large risk for inbreeding depression Rye, sugerbeet Cucumber, melon Carot, parsnip, parsely, dill All Brassicas Onion, leek Spinach, redbeet