Edwin Nuijten

• PhD
• Researcher at Wageningen University & Research

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....

The deliverable D3.7 aims to support the scientific community to promote an adapted vision of plant breeding for organic agriculture that has been called “organic plant breeding”. This vision advocates a holistic approach and comes back to the foundation and the four principles of organic agriculture, i.e., ecology, fairness, health, and care. Afte...

LIVESEED Deliverable 3.4 Report on breeding gaps and key factors for strengthening small breeding UPinitiatives: Experiences on five crops

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...

A roadmap towards achieving 100% organic seed from adapted cultivars in the organic sector

Agroecology calls for a global approach, integrating scientific, practical, and advocacy dimensions, to redesign agricultural systems based on ecological and socio-cultural processes and emphasizing biodiversity. This review is grounded on the results of DIVERSIFOOD, a European H2020 multi-actor research project, and explores the concept of cultiva...

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...

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...

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,...

As efforts in spring wheat breeding for organic farming are limited, organic farmers rely on varieties developed by conventional breeding. Evolutionary breeding may be an alternative approach to diminish this dependence. In the Netherlands, two spring wheat CCPs were grown by several farmers in 2014 and 2015. Lessons were learned on cultivation, ba...

The availability of spring wheat varieties for organic farming is very limited. Efforts have been made to find ways to obtain more suitable varieties and make their future availability more reliable. A consortium of farmers, bakers and a trader has been set up to stimulate this development, in cooperation with breeders. A number of key elements...

This chapter offers an account of the introduction of Carolina rice to communities surrounding the abolitionist settlement at Sierra Leone from the end of the eighteenth century. The abolitionists sought to encourage cultivation of rice with white pericarp, since this was thought to be more acceptable in export markets. Carolina rice was white. Mos...

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...

To increase rice production in Africa, considerable research has focused on creating interspecific hybrids between African (Oryza glaberrima Steud.) and Asian (O. sativa L.) in an attempt to obtain the positive attributes of each in new cultivars. Since flavor is a key criterion in consumer acceptance of rice, as an initial inquiry we characterized...

We assessed the interplay of artificial and natural selection in rice adaptation in low-input farming systems in West Africa. Using 20 morphological traits and 176 molecular markers, 182 farmer varieties of rice (Oryza spp.) from 6 West African countries were characterized. Principal component analysis showed that the four botanical groups (Oryza s...

Lupine (Lupinus spp) kan interessant zijn voor zowel biologische als gangbare akkerbouwers die zoeken naar een vlinderbloemig gewas om hun vruchtwisseling te verruimen, niet alleen als veevoer maar ook voor humane voeding. De beschikbare rassen kunnen echter alleen op kalkarme (zand‐)grond geteeld worden, terwijl de grootste arealen akkerbouw in Ne...

In 2012 en 2013 zijn veldproeven opgezet waarin lijnen van witte lupine en rassen van blauwe lupine zijn vergeleken. De witte lupine lijnen komen van twee veredelaars uit Nederland en Denemarken, de blauwe lupine rassen komen van zaadbedrijven uit Denemarken, Duitsland en Polen. Deze lijnen en rassen zijn beoordeeld op opbrengst, vroegheid bloei, v...

Uit verschillende media en projecten blijkt dat er een groeiende belangstelling is vanuit zowel consument als verwerker voor regionale producten gemaakt van biologisch graan. In Gelderland werken natuurorganisaties samen voor het lokaal beheren van natuurgronden, om op die manier biodiversiteit te verhogen. Die gronden zijn van belang om graangewas...

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the rice sector in Africa and the ongoing rice research and development activities in the region. Specific topics are classified under the following headings: overview of rice in Africa (chapters 1-4), rice genetic diversity and improvement (chapters 5-14), sustainable productivity enhancement (chapter...

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the rice sector in Africa and the ongoing rice research and development activities in the region. Specific topics are classified under the following headings: overview of rice in Africa (chapters 1-4), rice genetic diversity and improvement (chapters 5-14), sustainable productivity enhancement (chapter...

This study offers evidence of the robustness of farmer rice varieties (Oryza glaberrima and O. sativa) in West Africa. Our experiments in five West African countries showed that farmer varieties were tolerant of sub-optimal conditions, but employed a range of strategies to cope with stress. Varieties belonging to the species Oryza glaberrima - sole...

Lupine (Lupinus spp) trekt belangstelling van zowel biologische als gangbare akkerbouwers die zoeken naar een vlinderbloemig gewas om hun vruchtwisseling te verruimen, niet alleen als veevoer, maar ook voor humane voeding. De beschikbare rassen kunnen echter alleen op kalkarme (zand-)grond geteeld worden, terwijl de grootste arealen akkerbouw in Ne...

Rice breeding and crop research predominantly emphasize adaptation to ecological conditions. Based on qual-itative and quantitative research conducted between 2000 and 2012 we show how ecological factors, combined with socio-economic variables, cultural norms and values, shape the use and development of local technologies related to the cultiva-tio...

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...

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...

In areas with less favourable conditions for agriculture, informal seed systems permit gene flow through pollen to play a crucial role in the development of new varieties. An important factor with great impact on cross-pollination is the plant breeding system, but so far this is little studied within the context of low-input farming systems. This r...

a b s t r a c t The need for interdisciplinarity in agricultural and development-oriented research has become widely recognized. In this paper a framework is suggested to integrate research methods of the social and natu-ral sciences. It is argued that the context–mechanism–outcome configuration, based on critical realism, allows a more comprehensi...

This paper analyses the organization of the rice seed sector in Guinea with the overall objectives to assess how organizational settings affect seed supply to small-scale farmers and to suggest institutional changes that would favour seed service and uptake of varieties. Data were collected in Guinea, West Africa, using focus group discussions with...

It is sometimes argued that women play a more important role in seed and diversity management than men, and that women have greater abilities in managing crop diversity. In The Gambia, men and women also have the belief that women are better in managing and identifying varieties than men. This article focuses on the role of gender in farmer managem...

Agricultural research predominantly emphasizes adaptation to ecological conditions giving little attention to the ways local social organization and structure shape technologies and their dissemination. In this paper we present, with a focus on African rice (Oryza glaberrima), how, next to ecological factors, cultural norms, values and narratives s...

The low use of improved rice seed by farmers in west Africa is not well understood. This study assessed how institutional settings and stakeholder perceptions in the formal rice seed sector inhibit small-scale farmers’ access to improved seed. Data were collected in s Guinea, west Africa, in 2007 and 2008. To understand the dynamics of seed interve...

In West Africa two rice species (Oryza glaberrima Steud. and Oryza sativa L.) co-exist. Although originally it was thought that interspecific hybridization is impossible without biotechnological methods, progenies of hybridization appear to occur in farmer fields. AFLP analysis was used to assess genetic diversity in West Africa (including the coun...

Overview of the 315 investigated rice samples and their assignment to the four observed clusters by the software Structure. (0.64 MB DOC)

Mechanisms Explaining Variety Naming by Farmers and Name Consistency of Rice Varieties in The Gambia. Understanding variety naming by farmers is important for better understanding crop genetic diversity in farmer fields and its management by farmers. This paper describes variety naming of rice by farmers in The Gambia and presents mechanisms that e...

Ambiguity exists about the level of genetic diversity represented by farmer crop varieties, how it develops over time and how it relates to the diversity comprised by formal varieties. As part of an interdisciplinary technological/sociological study on farmer management of gene flow, upland rice (Oryza sativa L.) and late millet (Pennisetum glaucum...

In many tropical countries we can distinguish two seed systems: a formal seed system (comprising breeding companies and national institutes) and an informal seed system, often called farmer seed system (comprising of all farmer activities related to the transfer of seeds). These two systems are intertwined in various degrees for different crops and...