March 25: Breeding Carrots for Production, Resilience, Flavor, and Fun in Organic Systems
Join eOrganic on Friday, March 25 for a webinar on breeding colorful carrots! Presented by Laurie McKenzie and Micaela Colley of the Organic Seed Alliance, Philipp Simon of the USDA ARS, and Solveig Hanson of the University of British Columbia. The webinar takes place at 10AM Pacific, 11AM Mountain, 12PM Central, 1PM Eastern time, and is free and open to the public. Advance registration is required.
Register now at https://oregonstate.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ULb-ipZARJ-5sIGxIBhh8A
About the Webinar
In this presentation, you'll learn fundamental concepts and strategies that are key to successful carrot breeding work. The presenters will cover basic genetics, color expression, trait expression and selection, and demonstrate how to cut, evaluate, and select roots from a diverse array of orange and rainbow colored roots. Specific topics that will be addressed:
- Which traits are straightforward to select for and which are not (more complex)
- Strategies to tease out environmental effects from genetic expression
- Basic color genetics - which colors are dominant and “easy to fix and work with” and which are more challenging
- When to stop - traits that are very difficult or “impossible” to select out or away from
- A word about male sterility - how it works in carrots (it’s naturally occurring) and what to do if, or when, it shows up
- Root evaluation, selection, and storage
Funding for this webinar is provided by a NIFA OREI grant: Carrot Improvement for Organic Agriculture: Leveraging On-farm and Below Ground Networks. This research is also part of Organic Science Cluster 3, led by the Organic Federation of Canada in collaboration with the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada at Dalhousie University, supported by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Canadian Agricultural Partnership - AgriScience Program, and by The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security.