I will try to connect mr. van Mansvelt and than come back to it. As far as I
understand there is not such use of crossing but rather growing of sister lines
and selecting them further. I will let you know when I talked to someone
involved in the research.
Wytze
Ronald Nigh wrote:
> Dear SANET and Wytze de Lange
>
> Thank you for this interesting post, Wytse. Indeed, the subject is so
> important that I think it would be helpful if you could clarify some of the
> points that I don't quite understand.
>
> What exactly does "crossing sister lines" involve in practical terms?
>
> With corn crossing is fairly easy, but how does it work with wheat?
>
> What exactly is the nature of Temirbikova's research?
>
> There is precious little research on this issue. I just saw a presentation
> of fascinating results by Hugo Perales, Mexican agronomist, who found that
> traditional farmers in Central Mexico are able to maintain adapted races of
> corn that perform as well or outperform available hybrids. Farmers freely
> use the hybrids when they work, but for the most part, the traditionally
> maintained varieties do just as well (including by responding to chemical
> fertilizer and irrigations etc.) and in some conditions consistently
> outperfom hybrids. Two factors maintain these varieties: the incredibile
> reserve of genetic variety farmers possess and conserve (with know help
> from anybody) and the continual experimentation and selections by farmers
> from that variety (one again, with no support). Mexican government ag
> policy has, for decades, actively discouraged this activity among farmers.
>
> There is a lot of hype about 'modern plant breeding' and now
> 'biotechnology' as being what has 'fed the world' over the past decades as
> we grew to 6 billion. But it seems to me this activity by farmers that has
> maintained the viability of our crops all over the world is far more
> important to our food security, past and future, than any systematic
> breeding or genetic engineering ever has or will be. In fact, the concern
> now is that GE, seed patents and such might threaten this traditional
> source of crop productitivity. How much of our basic crop production do we
> really owe to modern plant breeders and how much do we owe to farmers? I
> think giving the plant breeders credit for 10 per cent of it would be
> generous. Would it be possible to come up with quantitative estimate?
>
> Not that we don't appreciate them! I hope modern plant breeders will
> continue to ply their trade. But the coroporate hype has blown their
> contribution way out of proportion and detoured our attention from the
> truly vital process we should be concerned about: in situ conservation and
> selection by farmers. This is the heart of agricultural sustainability.
>
> Ronald Nigh
> Dana, A.C.
> Mexico, D.F. & San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
> Tel. y FAX 525-666-73-66 (DF)
> 529-678-72-15 (Chiapas)
> danamex@mail.internet.com.mx
>
>
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