Organic Plant Breeding: Module 1

The Crop Trust is a non-profit international organization dedicated to conserving crop diversity and making it available for use globally, forever, for the benefit of everyone.

We work with donors and partners to lead global projects that protect crop diversity, conserve crop wild relatives and develop technology to make this diversity accessible worldwide.

We seek professionals with a passion for global food security and a strong drive to contribute to our mission of conserving crop diversity for future generations.

Type

Self-Paced

Fee

Free

Topics

Genebank management

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Overview

The LiveSeeding project offers a set of 5 training packages, organized in 25 Modules on organic breeding and organic seed production, including online and on-site sessions. These materials offer a comprehensive perspective on organic breeding knowledge, concepts, strategies, tools and opportunities, adapted to a diverse group of target trainees, from organic farmers to PhD students of different levels (high school, undergraduates and/or MSc students) and scientists, seed producers, organic breeders, and any others involved in the value chain of organic systems with interest in some (or all) of the main issues in organic breeding.

Link to website: https://liveseeding.eu/trainings-summer-school/

Link to repository on ECO-PB website: https://www.eco-pb.org/trainings.html

Modules

Module 1: Plant Genetic Resources (PGRs): collection, conservation and exchange to support the increase of agrobiodiversity in farming systems (3 units).

Topics: Plant genetic resources (PGRs) are essential for breeding. The agrobiodiversity encompassed in modern varieties, landraces and ecotypes as well as wild relatives must be preserved i) to mitigate genetic erosion and, therefore, ii) to ensure that these resources are available to face future challenges (e.g. climate change, new pathogens, new preferences) and iii) contribute to a diverse and resilient agrifood sector. Seedbanks as ex situ conservation structures, community seedbanks (CSBs), breeding and pre-breeding collections, are among the most usual ex situ conservation methods. Community seed banks and farmers ́ collections are examples of in situ conservation.
Target groups: In this module, the targeted actors learn about methodologies and strategies related to the conservation, use and exchange of genetics resources. This module is open to (although not limited to) farmers (and more specifically to the ones committed with agroecology, preservation of landraces and involved in selection and plant breeding) and students (from the high school level to MSc level, especially students in plant breeding, plant production or agronomy).
Number of units: 3

Host

Live Seeding

The Live Seeding project promotes the growth of organic seed and plant breeding for the transition to more sustainable local food systems.

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