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Richard Bernard, Seeds of Change Research Manager
Our research agenda here at Seeds of Change is complex, based on the fact that we serve a whole range of organic growers in USA, on farms and gardens of various types and sizes, with uniquely adapted land management strategies. Those growers rely on the quality of our seeds and the precision of our plant genetics in order to successfully grow a diversity of crops in a variety of ecologically-specific locations. Since there is a great diversity of growing environments across the United States, our strategy is to target representational growing areas in different regions (coastal California, Oregon's Willamette Valley, south Georgia, to name a few) in order to make our trial results and product developments relevant and applicable to growers across a wide array of bio-regions.
When targeting an area, we do not attempt to do all the work ourselves, but instead seek out partnerships with area growers and universities willing to collaborate with Seeds of Change in this effort of selecting and developing new plant varieties. This allows for a greater sum of knowledge and talent to go into our work, and also provides an incredibly valuable feedback loop, since we receive direct input on crop performance from the working fields of experienced farmers in a particular region.
We are proud today to have some of the most innovative, leading organic growers in the country doing trials with us. These include: Blue Heron Farm in upstate New York, Woodland Gardens in Georgia, Harmony Valley Farm in Wisconsin, Piedmont Biofarms and Black River Farm in North Carolina, Durst Organic Growers and Phil Foster Ranches in California, and Abbondanza Farms in Colorado. We also currently have partnerships with the following universities: UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, New Mexico State University, Cornell University, North Carolina State University, and work often with the Organic Seed Alliance in Washington state. Our Seeds of Change farm in New Mexico is also a part of this network and helps us select for plants particularly adapted to a high desert environment. We also have our own internal trial locations outside of Eugene, Oregon and Sebastopol, California as well as a garden trial site in southern Maine.
Our strategy is to focus not only on genetic traits but on their expression in a particular environment. We aim at finding the right genetics for the targeted environment and specific ecological requirements of an area. We want to respond to organic consumers that are looking for greater diversity, authentic flavors and higher nutritional profiles, as well as to satisfy the needs of organic growers that are looking for plants that have high resistance to stress and disease, and that will also perform better in low-input systems typical to organic farming. These factors and goals help us identify the desirable traits present in the large variety of cultivars that we have in our trial plans. This year, we have more than 500 new entries of all kinds, with a particular focus in lettuce, greens, peppers, tomatoes, squashes and melons.
One example of a specific research endeavor that is yielding promising development is a spinach project we have been conducting in partnership with the Organic Seed Alliance (OSA). After several trials at different locations and different dates, also comparing organic growing conditions versus those in conventional systems, we have found that spinach can develop high level of nitrates when provided high levels of nitrogen. We have also discovered that spinach grown within a controlled range of stress levels combined with adequate soil fertility will increase the levels of healthy components such as flavonoids. Based on these observations, we have set up a network of field trials with organic and conventional growers to screen spinach varieties for lower levels of nitrates and higher levels of flavonoids and vitamin C. We are now evaluating these nutritional traits beside more traditional traits like leaf texture, flavor and yield. In collaboration with OSA, we hope to introduce new cultivars with enhanced flavor profiles that are also more adapted to organic growing systems. These cultivars will not be selected to perform well in high-input conventional systems, nor will they are be selected for intensive spinach cultivation with high pressure of downy mildew as in the Salinas Valley in California; rather they will be adapted to growing conditions that strive to work within the ecology, and that are focused on production of flavorful crops of high nutritive value, rather than solely on yield.
Some other promising new products that should make their way into the Seeds of Change offerings in 2010 and 2011 are a white slicer cucumber, cantaloupes with new flavor profiles, a range of greens for different seasons, specialty peppers, and summer squashes of various colors, shapes and flavors.
Look for updates on these and other projects in the near future!
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