Great post!
Personally I feel ‘evolutionary plant breeding’ fits much better from what I’m doing and what I see going on in this forum than ‘landrace gardening’, which to me now I’ve read the literature, sounds more like gardeners on a small scale, growing traditional landraces, rather than actually breeding or encouraging/initiating adaptation. Though I guess that conversation was the topic of the other thread.
But yes it seems like the same work! That’s awesome that they will be sending seeds. I hope to have more land in the near future so when that comes I would definitely be interested in seeds. What different crops is he working with? And is there work with that group in cooler Summer, less sunny parts? I think that’s one thing that really separates some of us Northern Europeans from the folk in the US where they might have short seasons in places but strong plentiful sunshine, and mere earliness often isn’t enough, like with tomatoes and peppers for example.
Well, from the link I shared in the comment of mine you referenced in the OP, here’s what they say on the origin of that ‘Balcaskie Landrace wheat’:
This is a ‘modern landrace’ formed by mixing three historic Scottish varieties (Rouge d’Ecosse, Golden Drop and Hunters), growing them together and then sowing the resulting seed. In 2020, a high diversity Danish winter wheat population from Agrologica (developed by Anders Borgen) will be added to the Balcaskie landrace.
Here’s that breeder’s bio from the ‘Food and Agriculture Organization’ website:
Anders Borgen has been an organic farmer for 35 years and has for the past 15 years working as a private organic plant breeder in Northern Jutland, Denmark. He has studied agricultural science and philosophy and has a Ph.D. in Agriculture. Hannes Lorenzen meets Anders Borgen at the European Cereal Diversity Conference in Kalö near Aarhus in Denmark. For the past 10 years, cereal enthusiasts have met annually in Scandinavia and four times at the European level in the Let’s Liberate Diversity Network.
Here are some quotes from him this page:
You call yourself a nurd – a special kind of stubborn. What is so crazy about working with organic cereals?
Maybe because I was told to be crazy in what I am doing. But I am just convinced of it. Here in Kalö Organic Farm school I studied thirty five years ago and I am still working with cereals. Already back then I saw that organic farming had some problems, especially with seeds and varieties fit for the purpose of doing without pesticides and artificial fertilizers. But organic is much more. It is about observation of how plants grow and develop under specific circumstances, and to put the cropping system into a bigger context. Most of the problems in agriculture have their roots in the lack of diversity. In cereals, it is lack of diversity within each field and also between fields. Pesticides or and plant breeding can to some extend control the diseases, but the fundamental problem of lost diversity remains.When I had understood that, I focused on this problem for quite a while.
Breeding for organic is not very developed yet and there is almost no market for organic seeds.
The problem is of course that organic was a niche for a long time and that it was and still is allowed to use conventional seeds in organic farming. What I discovered was that the “new” varieties from conventional breeding had in fact produced new problems. Higher yields carried new weaknesses in other fields like weed competition. So I have tried to approach the problem in a more holistic way. That meant observing, selecting, and breeding in the context of organic farming, the living soil, competition with weeds, humidity, drought, wind, whatsoever. So my research and breeding idea is completely different. I do not care too much about specific characteristics of a variety, but the plant’s expression in the environment and in company with other plants.
[…]
Organic farming and markets grow, so they might need your support – what’s your response?
I have looked for people, not just breeders to work with. I look downstream of farming, getting in contact with consumers, restaurants, bakers, mills to find out about their preferences and needs. If you do not know what they want or what they do not like, you cannot select or breed properly. My work is not just for the farmers. If the baker goes for good bread quality, for natural dough, for good texture and specific taste, he or she needs the wheat or rye that fits for that purpose. So I need to know that. You see here at the cereal diversity conference a number of bakers who are not buying anything but tell me what they want. The same is true with the brewers. We have done some serious bread and beer tasting here which gives us ideas of how to work together for good quality food.What do you expect after this conference?
This is not the first time we meet. We started as a network of Nordic seed savers, researchers and breeders. We got inspiration from many individuals like Hans Larsson and organisations like the Nordic Gene Bank and seeds network. We found out that there are many more people looking for the same thing across Europe like Arche Noah in Austria and many others. This time at the gathering we have strong groups also from the South of Europe and even from Australia. I believe we can talk of a movement of people who care for the future of organic seed saving and breeding.
And here’s a page of his papers, including:
- ‘High Buffering Potential of Winter Wheat Composite Cross Populations to Rapidly Changing Environmental Conditions’
- ‘Association Mapping for Common Bunt Resistance in Wheat Landraces and Cultivars’
etc.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anders-Borgen