Vegetable Breeding Intensive Short Course

at Baia Nicchia Farm, Sunol CA

register by email at basil@ecologycenter.org $50, worktrade & student discounts are available, pay with check or paypal (use donation button on the right). Fill out this brief registration form. https://docs.google.com/a/ecologycenter.org/forms/d/147G2YRDrCOkn0cmaTsp...

Fred Hempel is an organic farmer and plant breeder at Baia Nicchia farm. He breeds tomatoes squash, peppers, & mustard. He sells his own & Ethiopian vegetable varieties through Artisan Seeds. He has released multiple tomato varieties that are sold through partnerships with wholesale producers and seed companies. The course will cover:

• Planning and Tools for Data Assessment:  gather materials; preliminary experiments; prioritize important traits for plant selection
• Seed Saving and Introduction to Reproductive Biology (inbreeding, outcrossing, vegetative propagation, ect.)
• Principles of Selection: what to look out for in order to get the results you want, recognizing mutations, natural crossing between garden neighbors, and line variation b) Selection for, or against, recognized traits
• Introduction to Cross-pollination, and How to create your own Hybrid
• An analysis of Hybrids
• Post-hybrid selection for new open-pollinated varieties.  Selection and data organization
• Politics of Seed: Intellectual property, distribution issues and return-on-investment:  Implications for the use of varieties in breeding, and for paying for your breeding activities.

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