Breeding for Organic Crop Production

There is a profound need for crop varieties bred for and adapted to production in organic systems.  The rationale for this is that organic production systems create a different environment from conventional systems, and that variety by production system interaction exists. Such interaction implies that for optimal performance, a variety needs to be adapted to the environment for which it is intended. The Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collaborative (NOVIC) is a farmer participatory project to evaluate existing commercially available varieties, and to breed new varieties in and for organic production.  The project spans four regions (NY, WI, WA, and OR) with research on broccoli, carrot, winter squash, snap pea, and sweet corn. Varieties and breeding lines are evaluated in a mother-daughter trial design with the replicated mother trials on institutional research farms and single replicate daughter trials distributed on regional commercial organic farms. Data from these trials are shared with regional grower groups and are published on the NOVIC website. Outcomes from the project will be discussed. We will also summarize the present state of the art of organic crop breeding.