Why don’t farmers save seeds?

Written by Nir Oksenberg

Until recently, I never put too much thought into where farmers get the seeds that they grow into the foods we eat. I assumed they saved seeds from their previous crop. I thought this would give the farmer more control over his or her operation and save money. I presumed that if a farmer chose to buy seeds, they would do so out of convenience. In reality, most farmers buy new seeds every year because of genetics! Now I know, and to help people understand the scientific rationale of purchasing new seeds every year, a group of young scientists, including myself, made a short video.
In the video, we describe what hybrid plants are, and their benefits to agriculture. We illustrate what would happen if a farmer kept and grew the seeds produced by the hybrid plants.

The video was made by UC Davis scientists Jenna Gallegos (graduate student), Don Gibson (graduate student), David Coil (project scientist), and Nir Oksenberg (postdoc). We are members of the Science Policy and Communication Group (SPCG). The SPCG is a project of the UC Davis World Food Center’s Institute for Food and Agricultural Literacy (IFAL) and also receives support from the UC Global Food Initiative – Communication, Literacy, and Education for Agricultural Research (CLEAR) program.
Did you like the video? What would you like to see us do next?

Written by Guest Expert

Nir Oksenberg is a professional science communicator for the Delta Stewardship Council, a California state agency. He fosters productive communication among scientists, the public, water managers, and policymakers. He has a PhD in human genetics from the University of California, San Francisco and was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Davis studying the rice response to bacteria, flooding, and drought in Pamela Ronald’s lab.

Deathmatch: Conventional Breeding vs Transgenesis

“Mutation. It is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.” – Professor Xavier
I love that quote from X-Men.
Other than the last sentence, it’s true. Mutations happen at a fairly constant rate and can occur every time a cell divides. Although we tend to think of mutations as negative events associated with genetic diseases or cancer, some mutations are beneficial: in our species, mutations have allowed for adaptation to high altitude in Tibetans or have protected individuals from heart disease. The same is true in nature: mutations allow for plants to develop resistance to pests, or in the case of weeds, to pesticides.
However, as Professor Xavier points out in the opening credits of the movie, the process is slow. So how can we “force” beneficial mutations to occur quickly? In crop development, we’ve been forcing mutations to happen by a process known as “mutagenesis“, where chemicals or radiation are used to create random mutations generating new traits. Continue reading “Deathmatch: Conventional Breeding vs Transgenesis” →

The Return of a King – The American Chestnut

When European settlers came to America, they found vast forests in the Appalachian mountains, dominated by the American chestnut. The chestnut quickly worked its way into the lives and culture of our country, and was used for lumber, food, forage, and fuel. But today, the chestnut is nearly gone – almost completely wiped out by a blight that was accidentally imported on a Chinese chestnut tree. The impacts of this loss have been felt across the Appalachians, and even to parts of the Midwest. But today there is a concerted effort to bring it back – and to use modern genetics to do it. Two fascinating projects have been underway for years, employing breeding and genetic engineering.
Last fall, thanks to the help of some of our readers, I was able to attend a presentation by Dr. William Powell at SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, NY. I also got a tour of his group’s labs, greenhouse, and field plots, followed by an interview with Dr. Charles Maynard. Then, I swung down to Asheville, NC, and interviewed Bryan Burhans, the then-president of the American Chestnut Foundation. On my way back to Madison, I stopped at the ACF’s breeding station in Meadowview, Virginia, for a tour and an interview with Dr. Fred Hebard who runs the breeding project for ACF. Each interview had some interesting discussions, which I hope you will find interesting. Continue reading →

Play it Hard – A Tribute to Dr. Norman Borlaug

The International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) and Biology Fortified have produced a special video tribute to the late Dr. Norman Borlaug, a legendary CIMMYT scientist who developed high-yielding, semi-dwarf wheat that started the Green Revolution which is credited with saving over 1 billion people from starvation. The release of this tribute coincides with The Borlaug Summit on Wheat for Food Security, on what would have been the 100th birthday of Dr. Borlaug. His message of increasing food production and the importance of using science in this effort are still important today – perhaps more than ever as the world has over 7 billion people and still growing.
To follow this event, go to www.borlaug100.org, and follow the #borlaug100 hashtag in social media. For more information about CIMMYT, visit www.cimmyt.org. Continue reading →

Q&A with Haven Baker on Simplot’s Innate™ Potatoes

haven2 — Haven Baker, Vice President of Plant Sciences at J.R. Simplot Company

There’s a new genetically engineered potato in town that doesn’t brown when cut or fried, nor does it make acrylamide. J. R. Simplot Company petitioned the USDA to deregulate their Innate™ potatoes, and the public comment period has just been opened up on that petition. We sent Simplot some questions about their new potatoes and the technology used to make them, and their Vice President of Plant Sciences, Haven Baker, was happy to respond. Here is that interview, and if you have more questions about it feel free to ask more, as we have asked Haven to stick around for the discussion.
1. Can you tell us about the new Innate potato traits? How was it decided that these traits would be important to work on?
Absolutely. Simplot is both a pioneering potato processor and food company. With over 60 years in the potato business, we are aware of a number of significant areas where biotechnology can benefit many of the entities that make up the potato food chain. The trick is always matching what is scientifically feasible with what makes business sense. We think that seed growers, farmers, processors and consumers can all benefit from reduced black spot bruise, low asparagine, and slow degradation of starch to sugars during storage. Continue reading →

KQED Quest on GMOs

KQED Quest, based in San Francisco, has just posted a half-hour special on GMOs called Next Meal: Engineering your Food, by Gabriela Quirós. In the wake of proposition 37 in California there has been a lot more public awareness of genetically engineered crops, but little public education about it. (Just think what those millions spent could have accomplished) So in this special KQED Quest takes a look at the science of plant breeding and genetic engineering, interviewing Peggy Lemaux from UC Berkeley, Eduardo Blumwald at UC Davis, along with a host of other farmers, writers, and activists. I have been anticipating this special for some time, because I’m in it! Well, sort of. Continue reading “KQED Quest on GMOs” →

How to Breed Fruit Trees

Have you ever wondered what goes into breeding your favorite fruit varieties? Breeding apples, plums, oranges and pears is made understandable with this video that explains the basic biology, origins, and techniques involved in breeding fruit trees.

This is the latest in my series on how to breed plants. If you are interested to see my other videos, check them out at my graduate program’s YouTube channel. So, now that you’ve seen this, who wants to be an apple breeder?

Shades of Green Talk Wrapup

Evan 'N' Frank — Even Kane, my host in Chicago, was very hospitable!

On Sunday, I gave a talk for the Ethical Humanist Society in Skokie, IL, on the outskirts of Chicago. Back in November, the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago asked me if I would be willing to talk about the benefits and risks of genetically engineered crops. The title of my presentation was Shades of Green, and I daresay it went well, especially considering that I have never given a talk of this kind before, and now I’m inspired to do more. I’m going to discuss a little of hat I talked about, what I thought worked, and what I thought needed to be improved.
First, I would like to thank the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago for this chance to speak at their first meeting of 2013. They are a community that provides a social environment for those who wish to live their lives in an ethical manner, and their members come from all walks of life. They covered my travel, and provided a little something for my troubles. And I was certainly made to feel welcome by my host, Evan Kane, who fed me some delicious barbecue on Saturday night, and took me in as his guest so I could rest up for the talk. He didn’t have to build a fire in his fireplace, but he did anyway! His friends Matt and Mariana engaged us some lively discussions of social definitions that I will never forget! Thank you.

Barbecue! — I had barbecue the night before the talk. Delicious!

Now on to the talk. Continue reading →

Tomorrows Table: What does GMO really mean?

For years, journalists, television producers and newspaper reporters that write about genetically engineered crops, have used the term “GMO” (genetically modified organism) to describe these new crop varieties. The marketing industry has taken to writing “GMO-free” on their products, as a way to increase sales to consumers fearful of the genetic engineering process.

The problem is that the term GMO is misused and misunderstood.

Take, for example, a recent story on Voice of America about a newly developed rice variety that is tolerant of flooding. The producer made a valiant effort to explain the genetic basis of this new variety:

“The new strain is genetically improved, but not genetically modified, so is not subject to tight controls on genetically modified foods.”

Does anyone know what is he talking about? I do, so please let me explain. Continue reading “Tomorrows Table: What does GMO really mean?” →

The fruits of climate change

Zaiger pluot whole and sliced. — Zaiger pluot, courtesy of BMRR on Wikipedia.

The other day I found myself looking through the plant patents held by the Zaiger’s Genetics team. The Zaigers, a family of plant breeders led by a UC Davis Plant Pathology graduate, have developed some very cool fruits. You may know of the pluot, and apparently they have a peach with low acid that has taken the world by storm. They have developed many plants with important and beneficial characteristics besides taste – but they taste great too.
I know some people dislike patents, but I have no objection to people who have developed these novel plants having patents on them. But considering what it takes to breed wonderful fruit tree varieties like these, you can understand why these patents exist.
Zaiger’s Genetics has been breeding fruit trees for decades, with many interesting successes. For some background on Floyd Zaiger a fruit innovator to the world and his family that continues this work, there was a great article in SFGate last year. One fruit they describe in that article is a hybridized nectarine popular in Spain:

One of Zaiger’s hybridized nectarines grown in Spain can mature 10 days ahead of anything else in Europe – “so they have a market almost all to themselves,” he says. That 10-day difference can make or break a country’s fruit industry. Continue reading “The fruits of climate change” →