E.T. Lammerts van Bueren

The Netherlands has a world-leading position in potato breeding, but little is known about the factors that led to this success. This paper analyses the factors that have influenced the development of potato breeding in the Netherlands. This study is based on research of the grey and scientific literature and interviews with various representatives...

With the growing demand for baby-leaf spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) and an increasing ban on chemical seed treatments, problems of damping-off diseases become more apparent. Pythium ultimum has been shown to be the most common damping-off pathogen of spinach. Previous studies showed a large variation in pre-emergence damping-off tolerance levels a...

A winter wheat composite cross population (CCP), created in the UK in 2001, has been grown in Germany, Hungary, and the UK since 2005 (F5 generation). In 2008/09 (F8), a cycling pattern for the populations was developed between partners to test the effects of rapidly changing environments on agronomic performance and morphological characteristics....

Spinach growers face increasing problems of damping off in the production of fresh market (baby-leaf) spinach due to increasing restrictions on chemical treatments. Damping-off tolerant cultivars are increasingly important, requiring proper evaluation methods. From three locations in the Netherlands with a history of spinach cultivation and from on...

In organic potato production, the need for varieties with durable late blight resistance developed through classical breeding programmes is urgent. Besides late blight resistance, other variety characteristics needed in organic potato production are early canopy closure for weed suppression and good tuber dormancy to eliminate the need for (chemica...

Participatory plant breeding (PPB), commonly applied in the Global South to address the needs of underserved farmers, refers to the active collaboration between researchers, farmers and other actors throughout the breeding process. In spite of significant public and private investments in crop variety improvement in the Global North, PPB is increas...

LIVESEED is a Horizon 2020 project applying interdisciplinary and multi-actor approaches aiming to transform the organic seed and plant breeding sector. The main goal is to reach 100% organic seed of cultivars suited for organic agriculture in order to improve competitiveness and integrity of organic production. LIVESEED covers the five main crop c...

Ample nitrogen (N) is required for potato production, but its use efficiency is low. N supply strongly interacts with maturity type of the cultivar grown. We assessed whether variation among 189 cultivars grown with 75 or 185 kg available N/ha in 2 years would allow detecting quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for relevant traits. Using phenotypic data...

Vernieuwde visie van de Wetenschappelijke Raad voor Integrale Duurzame Landbouw en Voeding. De Raad pleit voor een fundmentele paradigmashift van lage voedselprijzen en korte-termijnefficientie naar een systeem dat gezondheid vooropstelt.

Uniform seedling emergence is crucial for economically viable spinach ( Spinacia oleracea ) leaf production. However, non-uniform seed germination occurs due to variation in moisture sensitivity between and within spinach seed lots. To test moisture sensitivity, we developed a floating germination system with fixed distances between germination pap...

p>In this paper we focus on potato late blight control in the Netherlands to analyse the social-ecological interactions between farmer behaviour and disease dynamics. An agent-based model was developed to analyse the use of crop resistance for sustainable disease control. The framework on farmers’ decision-making was based on a behavioural theory a...

Late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans is one of the main diseases in potato production. The Netherlands has a high potato density and favourable weather conditions for the disease, and this combination leads to frequent outbreaks of late blight. A spatially explicit agent-based model of the host-pathogen system was used in workshops with con...

Organic agriculture only allows a few ‘natural’ compounds for managing pests and diseases such as copper which is applied as fungicide in apple, grape, potato, and tomato production. But as a heavy metal, copper is under debate in the organic sector. One key strategy to replace copper use is the market introduction of resistant varieties. In this a...

How the growing world population can feed itself is a crucial, multi-dimensional problem that goes beyond sustainable development. Crop production will be affected by many changes in its climatic, agronomic, economic, and societal contexts. Therefore, breeders are challenged to produce cultivars that strengthen both ecological and societal resilien...

Disease-resistant potato varieties can play a key role in sustainable control of potato late blight. However, when these varieties are more widely used, resistance breakdown can occur as a result of pathogen adaptation. Here we focussed on potato cultivation in the Netherlands, where new (single gene) resistant varieties have been introduced over t...

Cropping systems require careful nitrogen (N) management to increase the sustainability of agricultural production. One important route towards enhanced sustainability is to increase nitrogen use efficiency. Improving nitrogen use efficiency encompasses increasing N uptake, N utilization efficiency, and N harvest index, each involving many crop phy...

Increasing demand for nutritious, safe, and healthy food because of a growing population, and the pledge to maintain biodiversity and other resources, pose a major challenge to agriculture that is already threatened by a changing climate. Diverse and healthy diets, largely based on plant-derived food, may reduce diet-related illnesses. Investments...

In this paper, we describe the development of a set of guiding principles for the evaluation of breeding techniques by the organic sector over time. The worldwide standards of organic agriculture (OA) do not allow genetic engineering (GE) or any products derived from genetic engineering. The standards in OA are an expression of the underlying princ...

Potato late blight, caused by Phytophthora infestans, is one of the main diseases in potato production, causing major losses in yield. Applying environmentally harmful fungicides is the prevailing and classical method for controlling late blight, thus contaminating food and water. There is therefore a need for innovative research approaches to prod...

Cultivation of spinach requires high amounts of nitrogen (N), which puts a strain on the environment. A sustainable solution to this problem is to breed for crops with higher N use efficiency (NUE). The aim of this study was to provide tools for molecular breeding and to elucidate the genetic variation of factors contributing to NUE in spinach. A c...

Robustness in lettuce, defined as the ability to produce stable yields across a wide range of environments, may be associated with below-ground traits such as water and nitrate capture. In lettuce, research on the role of root traits in resource acquisition has been rather limited. Exploring genetic variation for such traits and shoot performance i...

Introduction The organization of commercial breeding differs across Europe. In a country such as the Netherlands there are numerous seed and breeding companies oriented at the conventional market, while in other countries such as Italy, not much commercial breeding activity exists. Similarly, in the Netherlands organic farmers use modern varieties,...

Seed governance in agriculture is a challenging global issue. This paper analyses the evolution of organic seed regulation in the USA, the European Union and Mexico as model cases of how these challenges are being addressed, based on a study conducted between 2007 and 2014. It highlights how growth of the organic sector is hindered by regulatory im...

The main objective of this research was to analyze whether selection under conventional conditions (indirect selection) is as effective as selection under organic conditions (direct selection) to develop varieties suitable for organic farming systems. Two F3 barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) populations ‘Primus’/‘Idumeja’ (P/I) and ‘Anni’/‘Dziugiai’ (A/D...

De biologische aardappelteelt heeft het in 2016 weer zwaar te verduren gehad met de hevige uitbraak van Phytophtora infestans. Door aanhoudende regenval in juni en juli waren veel telers genoodzaakt om hun percelen met aangetaste aardappelen al vroeg in het seizoen te branden. Gecombineerd met de late pootdatum hebben velen een (te) lage opbrengst...

This chapter of a book on innovation platforms (in Dutch) describes recent development in potato breeding from a perspective of an integrated approach using both farmers-breeders' tacit knowlege and biomolecular knowledge.

Organic farmers and food processors need plant varieties that are adapted to their crop husbandry and processing practices. Such varieties are scarce as the mainstream breeding sector focuses on developing varieties for the conventional product chain that has different goals and practices. In this paper we study the case of the Dutch bread producti...

Value for Cultivation and Use (VCU), the mandatory variety testing system for agricultural crops in the European Union (EU), has been used as a policy instrument by favouring the release of variety types that enable socially desirable developments, such as reducing fungicide use. With this paper, we aim to assess whether VCU can be used to enhance...

Met deze casus ‘Vruchtbaar Flevoland, van bodemdegradatie naar integrale verduurzaming’ wil de Raad laten zien hoe het belang van een duurzame bodem als basis van onze voedselketen uit het zicht is van de andere schakels in de keten en wat de perspectieven kunnen zijn om in de productieketen medeverantwoordelijkheid te scheppen om tot integraal duu...

Er zijn zes nieuwe biologische aardappelrassen gepresenteerd die resistent zijn tegen phytophthora.

In this project the host-pathogen system of potato (Solanum tuberosum) - late blight (Phytophthora infestans) was analysed as a model system to study management of crop-disease interactions. Resistant cultivars play an important role in sustainable management of the disease. We used an agent-based modelling approach to explore the use of resistant...

In organic farming, nitrogen efficiency of potato might vary among cultivars, even within the same maturity type. We therefore analysed in depth the response to nitrogen of a diverse set of cultivars, grown at different locations (differing in soil type and management) and in four years (differing in temperature and rainfall patterns). Yield increa...

Modern lettuce cultivars are bred for use under high levels of input of water and nutrients, and therefore less adapted to low-input or organic conditions in which nitrate availability varies over time and within the soil profile. To create robust cultivars it is necessary to assess which traits contribute to optimal resource capture and maximum re...

Spinach is a leafy vegetable that requires a high N fertilization to have a satisfactory yield and quality, in part because it has poor nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). Therefore, there is a need to breed for cultivars with an excellent NUE. To this end the genetic diversity for NUE-related traits was studied in a diverse set of commercial cultivars....

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) requires abundant nitrogen (N) to perform well and has low nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). We assessed phenotypic variation among 189 potato cultivars for NUE and the association between NUE and ecophysiological variables describing canopy development (CDv), under high and low N input. In 2009 and 2010, 189 cultivars we...

IntroductionIn Europe, the challenge of meeting future food demands while ensuring the sustainability of agricultural systems is increasingly an issue on the public agenda. We have to accept the need of increased efficiency, sustainability and resilience of our agricultural production, while at the same time meeting the emerging challenges such as...

Organic agriculture requires cultivars that can adapt to organic crop management systems without the use of synthetic pesticides as well as genotypes with improved nutritional value. The aim of this study encompassing 16 experiments was to compare 23 broccoli cultivars for the content of phytochemicals associated with health promotion grown under o...

New breeding approaches and organisational models are needed to stimulate breeding for organic agriculture. In order to achieve this, new concepts are needed. We propose a new analytical framework based on two axes: the level of diversity in breeding products and the level of access in the breeding model. This model combines ecological and socioeco...

Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) is mostly considered relevant to smallholder agriculture in developing countries. PPB involves getting farmers to participate in plant breeding to overcome shortcomings in the formal plant breeding system. The potato breeding system in the Netherlands has a long standing tradition of farmer participation in breedi...

To determine if present commercial broccoli cultivars meet the diverse needs of organic management systems, such as adaptation to low N input, mechanical weed management, and no chemical pesticide use, and to propose the selection environments for crop improvement for organic production, we compared horticultural trait performance of 23 broccoli cu...

Spinach is a leafy vegetable that requires a high N fertilization to have a satisfactory yield and quality, in part because it has poor nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). Therefore, there is a need to breed for cultivars with an excellent NUE. To this end the genetic diversity for NUE-related traits was studied in a diverse set of commercial cultivars....

Framing sustainable intensification as a wicked problem reveals how inherent trade-offs and resulting uncertainty and ambiguity block integrated problem solving as promoted by sustainable chain management approaches to production and consumption. The fragmented institutional set-up of the chains avoids that individual actors take responsibility for...

Organic agriculture needs spring barley varieties that are adapted to organic growing conditions and have good and stable grain yield across years, even under less favourable growing conditions. The aim of this study was to compare how varieties differ in yield and yield stability under conventional and organic management conditions. The results he...

This article reviews and analyses the evolution of organic seed regulation in the US, as a model case of how challenges in a new regulatory area are being addressed. The study draws on formal interviews of key stakeholders, participant observation, and documents generated in a six-year period between 2007 and 2013. The article addresses three main...

Organic farmers urgently need cultivars resistant to Phytophthora infestans. Such cultivars also need to be adapted to other traits important for organic farming systems. One goal in the first five years of this ten-year, public-private partnership was to establish a program within the Dutch potato breeding system that includes farmer breeders work...

Kool is een belangrijk gewas in Nederland. Koolsoorten vragen veel stikstof (ca. 300 kg N/ha)voor een goede groei, dikwijls meer dan binnen de huidige regelgeving in een biologische vruchtwisseling kan worden geleverd. Stikstof verhoogt de opbrengst, maar bij een hoog stikstofaanbod bereikt de opbrengst een plafond. Er is in het verleden veel onder...

To improve vegetable crops adapted to low input and variable resource availability, better understanding is needed of root system functioning, including nitrogen and water capture.This study quantified shoot and root development and patterns of water and nitrate capture of two lettuce cultivars subjected to temporary drought at two development stag...

Background and aims: Modern lettuce cultivars underperform under conditions of variable temporal and spatial resource availability, common in organic or low-input production systems. Information is scarce on the impact of below-ground traits on such resource acquisition and performance of field-grown lettuce; exploring genetic variation in such tra...

This article explores the potential of involving smallholder farmers in hybrid development for their low-external input farming systems. We have developed a conceptual model of the procedures, based on five assumptions: (a) the hybrids are bred for adaptation to local needs and preferences; (b) the dependence on and need for genetic diversity is ta...

Organic agriculture regulations, in particular European regulation EC 889/2008, prescribe the use of organically produced seed. For many cultivated plants, however, organic seed is often not available. This is mainly because investment in organic plant breeding and seed production has been low in the past. To bridge the gap between organic seed sup...

This paper explores changes in the organization of seed supply in China over the last decade by means of a multi-level institutional analysis. At the landscape level, the implications for China of the regulation of plant genetic resources through various international treaties and conventions are reviewed in the light of the evolution of the global...

This paper examines changes in the distribution of maize hybrids and landraces in the mountainous areas of southwest China over 1998–2008, farmers’ reasons for cultivar adoption and the implications for national policies in relation to seed production and breeding, based on baseline data and a survey conducted in Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou. The st...

This article investigates the contribution of action research to systemic institutional innovation, through a case study of access and benefit sharing (ABS) mechanisms developed in the context of a participatory plant breeding programme in Southwest China. The processes of purposeful change are examined as critical events, in eight episodes. Eviden...

Organic growers need information on variety performance under their growing conditions. A 4-year onion variety research project was carried out to investigate whether setting up a variety testing system combining conventional and organic variety trials is feasible and efficient rather than organizing separate variety trials under the two management...

Northwestern European consumers like their bread to be voluminous and easy to chew. These attributes require a raw material that is rich in protein with, among other characteristics, a suitable ratio between gliadins and glutenins. Achieving this is a challenge for organic growers, because they lack cultivars that can realise high protein concentra...

Organic Crop Breeding provides readers with a thorough review of the latest efforts by crop breeders and geneticists to develop improved varieties for organic production. The book opens with chapters looking at breeding efforts that focus on specific valuable traits such as quality, pest and disease resistance as well as the impacts improved breedi...

Het wil niet vlotten met de biologische aardappelteelt in Nederland. Het areaal is de afgelopen jaren gekrompen, vooral omdat bioboeren zich laten ontmoedigen door phytophthora. Samen met onderzoekers en telers van biologische aardappelen zijn veredelaars nu op zoek naar rassen die beter bestand zijn tegen de ziekte.

Voor het veredelingsbedrijfsleven is het nog beperkte biologische areaal een belangrijke bottleneck om te investeren in biologische selectie. Vanuit de biologische sector is er behoefte aan het vinden van innovatieve vormen van financiering of organisatie van veredeling om de vicieuze cirkel te doorbreken. Er zijn een aantal sleutelelementen geïden...

Zowel in de biologische als in de gangbare aardappelteelt is er behoefte aan rassen die met minder stikstof toe kunnen. Stikstofefficiëntie is een complexe eigenschap waar verschillende gewaseigenschappen aan bijdragen. In dit project werd onderzocht of er gewaseigenschappen zijn die gerelateerd zijn aan stikstofefficiëntie en waarop een veredelaar...

Het is een zwaar phytophthora seizoen geweest. Nu zijn telers weer helemaal gespitst op resistente rassen. Daarbij richten de ogen zich op het Bioimpuls veredelingsprogramma. Traditionele veredeling uit wilde rassen is een lange weg, maar levert wel meer op. En niet vergeten: smaak en uiterlijk tellen net zo goed. Tijd voor een update

Een belangrijke vraag voor de biologische landbouw is hoe veredeling kan bijdragen aan betere rassen voor biologische teeltomstandigheden. De rassen die biologische telers gebruiken komen voort uit gangbare veredelingsprogramma’s. Deze rassen zijn niet altijd even goed aangepast aan biologische productiemethoden. Uit eerder onderzoek bleek dat er g...

Sustainable agriculture and healthy nutrition are high on the social agenda. Work is now being done to face both challenges, often with measurable success. However, huge changes are still needed and some problems have even been exacerbated. Although agriculture and nutrition are closely linked, both issues are often dealt with in isolation. The pro...

Duurzame landbouw en gezonde voeding staan hoog op de maatschappelijke agenda. Aan beide uitdagingen wordt gewerkt en daarbij zijn diverse successen geboekt. Maar er zijn nog grote veranderingen nodig en sommige problemen zijn juist toegenomen. Hoewel landbouw en voeding nauw samenhangen worden beide vraagstukken nog vaak gescheiden aangepakt. De p...

Het Ministerie van Economische Zaken, Landbouw en Innovatie (EL&I) stimuleert de veredeling van nieuwe, robuuste rassen. Daarom heeft EL&I opdracht gegeven tot het onderzoeksprogramma Groene Veredeling. De robuuste rassen die met de verkregen kennis worden ontwikkeld, dragen bij aan het overheidsbeleid voor verdere verduurzaming van zowel gangbare...

IntroductionArguments Against Genetic EngineeringOrganic Basic PrinciplesToward Organic BreedingFrom Values to Criteria: Evaluation of Breeding TechniquesHow to Deal with Varieties Bred with Non-compliant Techniques?Toward Appropriate Standards to Promote Organic Plant BreedingDiscussion and Challenges for Organic Plant BreedingReferences

Organic and low-input agriculture needs flexible varieties that can buffer environmental stress and adapt to the needs of farmers. We implemented an experiment to investigate the evolutionary capacities of a sample of spinach ( Spinacia oleracea L.) population varieties for a number of phenotypic traits. Three farmers cultivated, selected and multi...

It is estimated that more than 95% of organic production is based on crop varieties that were bred for the conventional high-input sector. Recent studies have shown that such varieties lack important traits required under organic and low-input production conditions. This is primarily due to selection in conventional breeding programmes being carrie...

The importance of genetic diversity in cultivated varieties for organic and low-input agriculture has attracted increasing attention in recent years, with a need to identify relevant sources of diversity and strategies for incorporating diversity in plant breeding for organic systems. However, the regulatory system in many countries, particularly i...

De mestwetgeving en problemen met uitspoeling maken veredeling van aardappels op stikstofefficiëntie steeds interessanter. Met een lowinputaardappel kunnen veredelaars ook nieuwe markten in ontwikkelingslanden bedienen. Onderzoekers speuren naar manieren om de complexe eigenschap voor veredelaars grijpbaar te maken.

Doel van dit onderzoek betreft een inventarisatie van de aardappelveredelingspraktijk in Nederland en de specifieke rol van de kleine kwekers hierin, ook wel hobby- of boerenkwekers genoemd. Dit onderzoek is uitgevoerd ten behoeve van de adviserende taak van de COGEM naar het Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Milieu/Bureau GGO. Het onderzoek heeft a...

Plant geneticists consider molecular marker assisted selection a useful additional tool in plant breeding programs to make selection more efficient. Standards for organic agriculture do not exclude the use of molecular markers as such, however for the organic sector the appropriateness of molecular markers is not self-evident and is often debated....

The genotype by environment interaction study of broccoli, amongst others, demonstrates that traits of a cultivar are sometimes ranked differently when grown in an organic production system compared to a conventional system. This has strong implications for breeding strategies. The breeders interviewed acknowledged that more attention on abiotic an...

Plant geneticists consider molecular marker assisted selection a useful additional tool in plant breeding programs to make selection more efficient. Standards for organic agriculture do not exclude the use of molecular markers as such, however for the organic sector the appropriateness of molecular markers is not self-evident and is often debated....

While breeding for organic farming it is necessary to identify the most appropriate growing conditions in which to perform the selection process. Soil fertility, crop management, yield level and other factors may vary very much between each organic farm, and between organic farms and research institutions where the selection is usually performed. S...

Biologische productie, evenals de aandacht voor gewasveredeling voor de biologische landbouw, nemen in Europa nog steeds toe. De vraag die vaak gesteld wordt, is in hoeverre veredeling voor de biologische sector afwijkt van moderne gewasveredeling, en of het afwijzen van genetische modificatie ook betrekking heeft op selectiemethoden gebaseerd op m...

De resultaten van deze rassendemo zijn tijdens een demomiddag besproken met de telers en de zaadfirma’s met het doel om te kijken of er op korte termijn een geschikt assortiment is te realiseren, of waar er nog specifieke eisen aan deze rassen ontbreken. Met de uitkomsten kunnen zaadbedrijven gerichter werken om een adequaat en sluitend assortiment...

The basic values of organic agriculture is laid down in the IFOAM four basic principles: the principle of health, the principle of ecology, the principle of fairness and the principle of care. These principles and the consequences and challenges for the further development of organic plant breeding is discussed. It is also explained why genetically...

Average potato yields in Dutch organic farming are rather low and variable, due to the disease known as late blight (Phytophthora infestans). Potato breeding companies, organic farmers and breeding scientists from the Louis Bolk Institute and Wageningen University, have joined forces in an umbrella program called Bioimpuls. Within this program ther...

Per 1 maart 2005 werd Edith Lammerts van Bueren in deeltijd buitengewoon hoogleraar Biologische Plantenveredeling aan Wageningen Universiteit. Een onafkankelijke evaluatiecommissie heeft onlangs positief geoordeeld over haar eerste termijn van vijf jaar en goedkeuring gegeven voor een tweede termijn. In de vorm van een zelf-interview, zoals we die...