For those who missed it and for those who missed catching all the fine and coarse details of the hybrid zoom/in-person meeting on avocado varieties and rootstocks, here it is - the Shoot. Also, there is a survey on avocado rootstocks that a group of researchers headed by Patricia Manosalva at UC Riverside would like you to complete in order to help direct their breeding program.
California Avocado Growers Seminars Series 2022
From the:
August 17
Live Seminar and Hybrid Zoom
Avocado Varieties Panel Discussion
A big thank you to our Speakers
Speakers:
Mary Lu Arpaia - UC Riverside Postharvest Specialist/Plant Breeder
Avocado Varieties: Current status and crystal ball gazing towards the future.
Consuelo Fernandez - Brokaw Nursery R&D Manager
Performance of Commercially Available Rootstocks and Future Availability of New Ones
CAS President Nathan Lurie and Grower Panel
Grower Experiences with Avocado Variety and Rootstock Field Performance
Most plant-based foods we eat today are a product of innovative plant breeding programs. Careful choice of plant parents is followed by a multitude of intentional, hand-pollinated blooms. These result in thousands of unique seeds. This is just the start of a long process to create better crops.
In a paper we published recently in Crop Science, we outline a very critical issue: U.S. public investment in plant breeding programs has fallen. The current funding model of short-term grants (1-, 2- or sometimes 5-year awards) is particularly challenging for breeding programs which require typically a 7- to 12-year process, or far longer.
Crop breeders are not just looking for characteristics like drought tolerance or disease resistance in their breeding programs. They also must create new crops with these characteristics that taste good!
Breeders select plant parents based on desirable characteristics. These could be taste, size, cooking ability, yield, disease resistance and more.
They then cross-pollinate, growing seeds that are hybrids of the parents. They are the “children.”
These “child” seeds are germinated, nurtured, and then meticulously evaluated. Many inferior seedlings are ultimately discarded, with only a few of them advancing to a new round of parenting.
Crops go through many such cycles of newly-created diversity and intentional selection. Eventually, the plant breeder may become satisfied that an elite seedling has what it takes to become a successful new variety. This practice is a long-term endeavor. Some crops can be brought to market in a few years, but crops like apples can take well over a decade.
The benefits of public plant breeding programs
As a result of plant breeding, yields and quality have increased, resulting in remarkable improvements in agricultural production systems. Related species have been used as parents to give important crop plants tolerance to biological and physical stressors. New varieties are adapted to withstand harsh growing conditions or potentially devastating invasive pests or diseases. As climate conditions and ecosystems change, plant breeding is an essential tool to address our long-term food security.
Both private and public institutions have crop breeders working to improve our food supply. Public plant breeding programs often focus on crops that are important to society but may be less profitable than crops that drive the bottom line for large businesses. These crops may have long generation times or otherwise be challenging to breed. They may be the focus of regional cultural specialties or beloved niche markets. Private breeding programs usually must focus on large multinational commodity markets with a potential to generate large, near-term financial returns on private investment. Given these pressures, private companies may find it difficult or impossible to address smaller national or regional markets or longer-term needs.
Public plant breeding programs frequently target such longer-term goals, many of which address food security issues. For example, “pre-breeding” enriches our agricultural base with diverse plant characteristics from crop wild relatives or other related plants. This requires a lot of research, and significant risk that some efforts won't pan out. But these trials can create new, superior seedlings which make it possible for public breeding programs and private breeding companies to produce important new crop varieties.
Public plant breeding programs also play a key role in educating the next generation of plant breeders and plant scientists for both public and private programs.
Funding issues cause problems
Several studies over the past 30 years have looked at the status of breeding programs. Each showed that U.S. plant breeding capacity is at risk. Budgets and personnel availability continue to decline, despite the development of new plant breeding technologies.
Our most recent survey cited above, in 2018, updated this information. The data indicates a significant reduction in public breeding program personnel over the last 5 years, and aging program leaders. Many programs report that budget shortfalls and uncertainty endanger or constrain their ability to support key personnel, maintain core infrastructure and operations, and make use of current technology.
Many surveyed said that when funding is reduced or sporadic, they focus on sustaining the most basic core operations of the program. These are items like fixing the greenhouse roof and watering the fields. Applying new scientific advances or continuing graduate student and postgraduate training opportunities are typically the first losses. This impacts not only the public program's advanced goals but also development of a long-term social resource: the next generation of plant breeders.
The bottom line is that the struggle to maintain adequate funding hampers public breeding programs. The timeline to bring new crops to market exceeds the time period of most funding sources by years. This requires program leaders to devote much of their time to the constant search for more funding, rather than focusing on their actual work. One solution is to create longer-term grant programs. Otherwise, advances in important crops that are not global commodities could start to decline.
Our study shows public plant breeding programs are at risk of disappearing. They need reinvigorated, stable, long-term access to funding, technology, knowledge, and expertise.
U.S. plant breeding capacity as a whole (both public and private) and, more broadly, U.S. food security, natural resource resilience, and public health will erode if the trajectory of declining budgets and reduced staffing and expertise in public plant breeding programs is allowed to continue.
Public plant breeding programs are easy to overlook, but their loss would be a devastating blow to our food system.
The general public is invited to join us for a family friendly Citrus Tasting Event. You can see and taste more than 100 citrus varieties that are grown at Lindcove Research and Extension Center. Take a bag of fruit home for $10. Choose from Cara Caras, Navels, Mandarins, or assorted citrus from 4 bins located in front of the Conference Center. The Master Gardeners as well as UC Cooperative Extension Advisors will be happy to answer questions from home gardeners and citrus connoisseurs.
Directions: Take Highway198 east to Mehrten Drive (approximately 15 miles) and follow the signs to our Event. The University of Lindcove Research and Extension Center is located at 22963 Carson Avenue Exeter, CA. The Conference Center is located at the end of Carson Avenue. If you have any questions please contact Jasmin Del Toro at 559-592-2408 Ext 1151 or jzdeltoro@ucanr.edu
Register for 2018 UC Riverside Citrus Day for the Industry
Please join us for the 7th Annual Citrus Field Day, designed for citrus growers and citrus industry representatives. Pending approval, we will be offering 5.0 hours of California Continuing Education Credit for Pest Control Advisers (PCA).
The Citrus Research Board (CRB) is proud to announce the return of the Citrus Grower Seminar Series, co-produced by the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE). Three different meeting dates and locations will give growers from different regions the opportunity to attend.
The FREE half-day seminars start at 8:00 a.m. and are expected to end at 12:00 p.m. Registration will begin at 7:30 a.m. Citrus experts from California and Florida will be sharing their knowledge and expertise with topics on: Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) and Huanglongbing (HLB), integrated pest management, rootstocks, new varieties and alternate bearing.
CLICK HERE to view event flyer (including guest speakers)
3-hours of Continuing Education (CE) “Other” Units have been approved by DPR.
3.5-hours of Certified Crop Adviser Units have been approved.