COLLABORATIVE PLANT BREEDING NETWORK DEVELOPMENT FOR ORGANIC SYSTEMS IN THE UPPER MIDWEST

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: OTHER GRANTS
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1023494
• Grant No.: 2020-51300-32176
• Cumulative Award Amt.: $999,714.00
• Proposal No.: 2020-02247
• Project Start Date: Sep 1, 2020
• Project End Date: Aug 31, 2024
• Grant Year: 2020
• Program Code: [113.A]- Organic Agriculture Research & Extension Initiative

Project Director
Dawson, J. C.

Recipient Organization
UNIV OF WISCONSIN
21 N PARK ST STE 6401
MADISON,WI 53715-1218

Performing Department
HORTICULTURE

Non Technical Summary
There is a critical need in organic agriculture to breed crop varieties adapted to organic production systems. Equally critical is the need to adapt to changing climatic conditions, through more decentralized testing and regional selection of varieties. We will build capacity among farmers, plant breeders and seed companies, to ensure that farmers' evolving needs and unique body of knowledge drive the development of the crop varieties made available to them. Advancements in real-time information sharing, decentralized participatory methodology, analysis tools for large datasets from heterogeneous environments, and techniques for facilitating multi-stakeholder collaboration are necessary to equip organic plant breeders to succeed in serving organic farmers. In pursuit of these goals, the research and outreach objectives of this project are to: 1) Build collaborative plant breeding and trialing capacity among Midwest organic farmers, independent plant-breeders, organic seed companies, and organic inspectors via advanced training and an integrated community of practice; 2) Release a suite of plant breeding tools in the new online platform SeedLinked that facilitate collaboration among farmers, independent plant-breeders, organic seed companies, and organic inspectors; 3) Develop and release varieties of sweet peppers and tomatoes exhibiting priority traits for Upper Midwest organic production using participatory methods and SeedLinked to engage organic fresh-market vegetable farmers in the breeding process; 4) Train a graduate student in participatory methods and breeding for organic systems; 5) Promote regional breeding network development, and improved organic seed use across the country via online training opportunities and tools.The long-term success of organic farms in a changing climate and unpredictable agricultural market depends on a resilient seed system. Dynamic participation and frequent feedback should drive evolution and adaptation. In a robust seed system, short term goals (e.g. specific breeding objectives) are pursued in tandem with the long-term work of strengthening the relationships that nurture and enable collaboration. Effective decentralization requires capacity building for farmers and other actors who have not traditionally done variety trialing, plant breeding or seed saving. This project facilitates the development of improved plant breeding methods for organic agriculture. The project will strengthen relationships between farmers, public and private sector breeders, non-profit seed organizations, regional seed companies and organic certification agencies, to facilitate future collaborative breeding projects for organic agriculture.

Animal Health Component

50%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

0%

Applied

50%

Developmental

50%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
202	5240	1081	100%

Knowledge Area
202 - Plant Genetic Resources;

Subject Of Investigation
5240 - Seeds and other plant propagules;

Field Of Science
1081 - Breeding;

Keywords

organic breeding

breeding methods

participatory research

seed systems

vegetables

Goals / Objectives
Varieties bred for organic systems work better for organic farmers. However, there are a shortage of plant breeders in either the public or private sector working on organic systems, and many organic farmers still rely on varieties bred for conventional systems. There is a critical need to build capacity for farmers, plant breeders and organic seed companies to work together to ensure that farmers' evolving needs and unique knowledge drive the development of the crop varieties available to them. Advancements in real-time information sharing, decentralized participatory methodology, data analysis tools for large datasets from heterogeneous environments, and techniques for facilitating multi-stakeholder collaboration are necessary to equip organic plant breeders to succeed in serving organic farmers. The long term goals of this project are to:1) Increase the number and availability of fresh market vegetable crop varieties well-suited to organic production in the Upper Midwest. This region is currently underserved by vegetable seed companies but is predicted to be of growing importance with changes in climate.2) Build and sustain a robust regional network of organic farmers, plant breeders, seed companies and organic certifiers working together to improve crop varieties for organic production and increase the use of organic seed on organic farms.3) Build the pipeline of professional plant breeders, including independent entrepreneurs, breeders at regional seed companies, and public sector programs dedicated to breeding for organic systems and using participatory methods.4) Encourage collaborative organic variety improvement networks in other regions to meet farmers' emerging needs in a regional context.In pursuit of these goals, the research and outreach objectives of this project are to:1) Build collaborative plant breeding and trialing capacity among Upper Midwest farmers, independent plant-breeders, regional organic seed companies, and organic certifiers through an integrated community of practice, advanced training opportunities, and a nationally available online toolkit.2) Test and improve SeedLinked functionality for farmers, breeders, and organic certifiers to effectively collect, share, and analyze data to support decentralized collaborative breeding and variety trialing.3) Develop models for cross-sector collaboration between independent breeders, public sector programs and organic seed companies. Enhance graduate student education by providing experience across these sectors to develop advanced breeding lines and commercialize varieties exhibiting priority traits for Upper Midwest organic production, employing collaborative breeding methods.

Project Methods
Objective 1.The combination of online, in-person, classroom style and peer-to-peer learning opportunities proposed above will simultaneously enhance individual skills and create space for people to share skills, ideas and lessons learned from experience with others who can test and deepen their thinking. The combination of an active, moderated listserv for those interested in collaborative plant breeding and in-person networking opportunities will ensure that community members can form strong personal relationships to support their individual work. Similar models for building a community of practice have been successful in this field. Live webinars are an appropriate format for offering education on advanced topics. The target audience for these presentations is geographically dispersed and familiar with online educational opportunities. The content and primary outreach for the webinars will be focused on the Upper Midwest, but webinar registration will be open nationally. This serves the purpose of bringing people with diverse experiences, questions and contexts into the virtual "room" to enhance each other's learning. The online Toolkit will be the primary method for supporting community of practice members' individual learning and for extending the results of this project to other regions. The video format for conveying important techniques for beginning farmer-breeders will help the audience visualize the information being conveyed, and will add a personal connection and sense of story to the technical aspects of breeding work. The methods for the Climatic considerations for seed crops in the Upper Midwest publication will include a review of existing literature, targeted interviews with at least ten Midwest seed producers and plant breeders, and consultation with experts in seed pathology and other seed quality issues.Objective 2.SeedLinked founder Enjalbert and staff developers Kastman and Thandaserry will make improvements to the platform from feedback obtained through the 2019 beta test. A second phase of improvements will target plant breeders, farmers engaged in breeding projects, and organic certifiers. UW-Madison and OSA will support SeedLinked staff by engaging farmers from their Upper Midwest Networks and facilitating feedback-sharing between farmers, breeders, and SeedLinked. Our workflow follows lean methods, generally proceeding in two-week sprints, with a target deliverable at the end of each sprint. During each successive sprint, we will fix bugs found in previous sprints and respond to user feedback, in addition to working on the tasks assigned to that sprint. Development feedback loop: The SeedLinked team will engage the SKC trialing network, Seed Savers Exchange, the Experimental Farm Network, Nature and Nurture Seeds and KC Tomatoes in designing, testing and improving Seedlinked functionalities for decentralized breeding. Following an iterative process engaging the direct platform users, we will constantly improve platform functionalities via this feedback loop. The SeedLinked development team will also do multiple site visits during growing season to validate and refine user experience. For breeding trials, a survey will be sent to trial managers and participants at the end of each season to solicit particular feedback on platform functionality. SeedLinked will engage Midwest organic certification agencies in improving Seedlinked's functionality for helping certifiers learn about new organic varieties and supporting farmers in improving organic seed usage.Objective 3.Tomato Breeding: We will follow a two-pronged approach to A) select and commercialize existing breeding lines and B) create populations with better resistance to foliar diseases and cracking seen in the Upper Midwest. Year 1-A) The performance of the best existing lines within the 45L23 and SGLL breeding pools will be tested in Kansas City, MO, Madison in Southern WI, and Spooner in Northern Wisconsin on certified organic land. 3-5 lines will be selected for on-farm trials in the region and potential commercialization. B) The best existing lines will be crossed to parents identified in SKC trials or from other breeding programs as more resistant to foliar diseases and cracking in the more humid Upper Midwest. Crosses will be made to generate a diverse population that can be used for on-farm trials and selection. The crossing will be done in the organic greenhouse facilities at UW Madison. Year 2-A) The lines selected for on-farm trials will be sent to 10 farms each, and farmers will use the SeedLinked application to provide feedback on each line to the breeding team. The graduate student and Enjalbert will help farmers with the application and will evaluate the new tools so that continued improvements can be made. Data will be sent to interested organic seed companies. The Dawson lab will recruit farmer collaborators and manage seed distribution. B) The segregating populations will be advanced in the field in Kansas City, MO, Madison and Spooner and sent to 5 farmers interested in conducting on-farm selection. Farmers will use the new breeding functionalities of SeedLinked, and with the assistance of the graduate student will select plants and send seed to UW Madison. Selected seed will be increased over the winter in the organic greenhouse at UW Madison. Year 3- A) The best 1-2 lines identified in multi locational trials will be used for seed stock production in Kansas City to be trialed by organic seed companies, and will be trialed in SKC research station trials as well as in the larger SKC on-farm trialing network. B) The advanced selected individuals will be evaluated in the field in Kansas City, Madison and Spooner and sent to the same 5 farmers. Farmers will again use the SeedLinked application to share feedback with the breeding team and select individual plants for advancement. Selections will be advanced in the greenhouse over the winter 2022, and sent out to a larger network of on-farm trials in the year following the project (essentially entering the "A" strategy for release if they are deemed promising enough).Pepper Breeding (Nature and Nurture Seeds) Year 1-Conduct screening trials for germplasm accessions and varieties that may be good sources of early yield and stronger disease resistance in Ann Arbor, MI, Madison, WI and Spooner, WI under certified organic conditions. The graduate student will help conduct a search of germplasm sources and in accessing varieties from other breeding programs. Select parents and cross with existing high performing open pollinated varieties in the winter in a certified organic greenhouse at UW Madison. Year 2-Grow out F1 individuals in Ann Arbor and eliminate any families that do not combine early yield and disease resistance. Harvest F2 seed and advance to F3 in an organic greenhouse at UW Madison. Year 3-Plant F3 families in Ann Arbor, Madison and Spooner under certified organic conditions. Send F3 seed to 10 collaborating farms. Select among families and within families for flavor, early yield, and disease resistance. Farmers will use the new breeding functionalities of SeedLinked, and with the assistance of the graduate student will select plants and send seed back to the project partners, with the help of the graduate student if desired. Selected F4 seed will be increased over the winter in the organic greenhouse at UW Madison. F5 seed of the most promising families will be put into stock seed production for a new OP to be sent out to on-farm trials with the SKC and evaluated for potential commercialization through Nature and Nurture Seeds.

Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audience is primarily farmers, independent seed breeders, seed companies interested in organic seed and organic certifiers. We reached all these audiences with information about the project through the on-farm trials conducted, our webinar series, field days, online platforms and newsletters. Changes/Problems:Some participants and target audience members have expressed difficulty understanding and using the Organic Seed Commons network. Support from OSA staff has been provided to help users understand functionality, but overall engagement on the platform has been less than desired. Further effort will be made to understand obstacles and facilitate more activity and communication within the network. Ongoing labor shortages unrelated to the project continue to challenge the ability of farmers to fully participate. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The summer field days provided professional development opportunities for students, educators, and growers interested in developing or being involved with participatory breeding projects. Online community events and Organic Seed Commons network allowed for peer-to-peer learning opportunities and information exchange. The webinar series provided professional development for a wide range of farmers and educators interested in seed production and breeding. The on-station trials provided professional development for 2 staff members and several undergraduate students. On-farm trials provided professional development for over 50 participants and their staff. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Information about the webinar series and highlights from the field day were posted and shared through blog posts on the Organic Seed Alliance website and sent through email newsletter to over 11,750 contacts (at least 1,300 of which known to be Midwest based, and more than 4,750 self-identified as farmers or seed practitioners). Information was also distributed through the SeedLinked newsletter, with about 2200 reads. Trial results are shared within and outside the SeedLinked platform, using its sharing capacity. On average, 1.1K unique users and 250 authenticated growers visit the platform per month. Summer field days presented results of the on-farm trials and selections to attendees and conducted flavor evaluations of the lines most likely to be released from the project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Objective 1 - we will complete the collaborative plant breeding toolkit, assembling educational products and publications from this project into a single online repository which will continue to be available after the project ends. We will complete publication of a guide on climate considerations for vegetable breeding and seed production in the Upper Midwest. We will continue community of practice activities including winter meetings and discussions on the organic seed commons platform. Objective 2 - we have completed the deliverables for this objective and will focus on receiving user feedback on breeder tools in SeedLinked developed through this project. Objective 3 - we will conduct an additional season of on-farm trials for the most advanced lines which have been selected for release, as well as returning selected lines to farmers which we have advanced one generation in our greenhouse. A publication will be submitted with the results of the collaborative selection experiment, and each case study will be summarized on eOrganic. Varieties developed through this project will be released through the open-source seed initiative.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Build collaborative plant breeding and trialing capacity Deliverables- COP, advanced training, online toolkit We organized and hosted an online series of six webinars titled "Practical Training for On-Farm and Collaborative Plant Breeding" in January and February 2023. These interactive webinars included presentations from project team members as well as external content experts from universities, privately owned seed companies, and non-profit organizations. There was time dedicated to questions and answers at the end of each webinar. These are available through the project website at eOrganic and the eOrganic YouTube channel. We also developed several tutorial videos on using SeedLinked which are available through the SeedLinked YouTube channel. We hosted an on-farm field day at Nature & Nurture Seeds Farm in Ann Arbor, Michigan featuring the breeding lines from this project. In addition to demonstrations of seed cleaning methods and discussion of best practices for organic seed production in the Midwest, participants were able to sample and evaluate this project's tomato breeding lines in comparison to commercially available varieties. A blogpost highlighting the field day was posted by Organic Seed Alliance and sent out through digital newsletters. Within the online Midwest Regional Seed Network on the Organic Seed Commons platform, we hosted a virtual meet-up in December 2022 to discuss breeding projects and seed production methods. The network has grown to 91 members. In addition, the Upper Midwest Seed Growers email list-serv has grown to 86 members. Objective 2: Test and rapidly improve SeedLinked functionality Deliverables - VDP Architecture, Data Sharing, Ontology, Trial Design, Data Analysis, Certifier and grower decision-making tools In 2023, our efforts were concentrated on enhancing user onboarding and engagement, implementing extensive UX/UI improvements, optimizing data and trial visibility, and refining sharing and privacy features. The following summarizes the accomplished deliverables: Full Social Feed Deployment: Introduced @mentions, #hashtags, and Follow features to enrich the user experience within the social feed. Trial Results Page Enhancement: Improved the trial results page with the inclusion of error bars and trial condition filters Enhanced sharing capabilities and privacy features, contributing to an improved UX/UI. Picture Tagging and Visibility: Implemented picture trait tagging and enhanced visibility in all platforms. Mobile and Web Embedded Walkthrough: Developed a full mobile and web embedded walkthrough Developed video tutorials and First-Time User Experience (FTUE) prompts, providing guidance to all users. Notably, this initiative resulted in a 10% increase in participation for the main national trials compared to 2022. Trial option Improvements: Enhanced the tasting trial with improved UX and code options. Introduced a subset trial (Triadic) with increased combination flexibility. Launching 2 new trials type this fall: Survey and flex trial Organizational Architecture: Designed and implemented an organizational architecture which allows multiple users per organization This was requested by organizations with multiple breeders and trial managers. Each organization now has a dedicated page within SeedLinked Social, enhancing overall visibility Interoperable Data Model: Developed a comprehensive data model designed to be fully BRAPI-compliant Now fully interoperable for future implementations in subsequent projects Variety Management Added a complete variety management space accessible to trial managers Trial managers can now add and edit varieties efficiently, streamlining the process Objective 3: Develop models for collaboration between independent breeders, public sector programs, and organic seed companies Deliverables - Tomato Breeding Case Study, Pepper Breeding Case Study We worked with breeders Keith Mueller and Erica Kempter to distribute mid generation breeding lines to participating farmers and gardeners. These lines were the result of on-farm and independent breeder selection, and were advanced a generation in the West Madison greenhouse over the winter of 2022-2023. We had three trials; two mid-generation tomato trials and one mid-generation pepper trial. The tomato trials included lines from Keith Muller with 31 participants, of which 12 have completely submitted data and the rest are in progress, and lines from Erica Kempter with 45 participants, of which 19 have completely submitted data and the rest are in progress. The pepper trial had 43 participants, of which 21 have fully completed the trial and the rest are in progress. Several growers returned seed of selections. We also grew out all these selections at the West Madison Agricultural Research Station to evaluate uniformity and compare selections. We are growing out both on station and on farm selections in the greenhouse over the winter to advance a generation and will send seed back to participants in the spring for a final year of on-farm evaluation of advanced lines. We are nearing release of two tomato varieties in addition to the creation of several very promising breeding lines that will continue to be evaluated in on-farm trials.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2023 Citation: Dawson, J.C., 2023. Connecting local food systems to regional plant breeding through flavor. Invited keynote to the National Association of Plant Breeders Annual Meeting. July 17th, Greenville, SC
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2023 Citation: Dawson, J.C., 2023. Participatory research for resilient regional seed systems. Weston Roundtable, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Feb 16.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2022 Citation: Dawson, J.C. 2022. Strategies for developing varieties for diversified farming systems. Invited talk at the Danforth Center Plant Breeding Symposium. Danforth Plant Sciences Center, March 9
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2022 Citation: Dawson, J.C. 2022. Plant breeding strategies for increasing regional crop diversity. Invited talk at the Plant Breeding Seminar Series. Iowa State University, February 23
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2022 Citation: Dawson, J.C. 2022. Variety selection for regional food systems. Invited talk at the Plant Sciences Symposium on Specialty Crop Breeding. North Carolina State University, February 10
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2021 Citation: Dawson, J.C. 2021. Plant Breeding for Organic Systems. Invited talk in the Symposium on Breeding for Systems: Resilient Crops and Ecosystem Services. Crop Science Society of America Annual Meeting, November 8
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Dawson, J.C., Enjalbert, N. 2020. Seed to Kitchen: Participatory Variety Trialing to Improve Selection Methods for Vegetable Flavor and Local Adaptation. Invited speaker, Crop Science Society of America Annual Meeting. ASA-CSSA-SSSA. Online, November 11.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2021 Citation: Dawson, J.C. and Enjalbert, N. 2021. Can crowdsourcing technology revolutionize collaborative breeding and testing? Organic World Congress, Rennes, France. September 9. Joint presentation.

Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:We reached our target audience with information about the project starting at the 2022 Organic Seed Growers Conference (OSGC), then at Organic Vegetable Production Conference, MOSES Conference, and virtual community meeting held through Organic Seed Commons. We also reached our audience through the summer field day, Farm to Flavor Showcase, and on-farm trials. Changes/Problems:Some participants and target audience members have expressed difficulty understanding and using the Organic Seed Commons network. Support from OSA staff has been provided to help users understand functionality, but overall engagement on platform has been less than desired. Further effort will be made to understand obstacles and facilitate more activity and communication within network. Some farmers expressed difficulty being able to make time in schedule to attend in-person field day, but videos were taken and are currently being edited to share presentations with those unable to attend. There were also lingering effects of COVID on participation of in-person events and on labor; many farmers are short-staffed and have less time available for research and networking. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The West Madison field day provided professional development opportunities for students, educators, and growers interested in developing or being involved with participatory breeding projects. Online community events and Organic Seed Commons network allowed for peer-to-peer learning opportunities and information exchange (see other products). The on station trials provided training for 2 staff members and 4 undergraduate students. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Trial results are shared within and outside the SeedLinked platform. On average, 1.1K unique users and 250 authenticated growers visit the platform per month. A number of outreach events were held (see other products) which distributed results and built the collaborative plant breeding network. Highlights from the field day were posted and shared through a blogpost on Organic Seed Alliance website and sent through email newsletter to over 9,000 contacts (at least 875 of which known to be Midwest based, and almost 3,300 more self-identified as farmers or seed practitioners). A blogpost on eOrganic about the Farm to Flavor outreach event included information on the project. The project website includes videos for trial participants, links to trial results and links to the blogposts:https://eorganic.info/collaborativebreeding What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue with the development of the community of practice and outreach activities described in the grant narrative including webinars, videos, workshops and field days. Plans for this coming winter include conducting six webinars this coming winter in collaboration with Michael Lordon and other project members. We will continue the development of SeedLinked functionality as described in the grant narrative, including the variety development process architecture, improvements to data analysis capabilities, and trial design for breeding programs. The tomato and pepper case studies will also continue, and a publication on their methodology will be submitted.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Build collaborative plant breeding and trialing capacity Deliverables- COP, advanced training, online toolkit Within the Midwest Regional Seed Network hosted on Organic Seed Commons, a synergy space meeting was held during the February 2022 Organic Seed Grower's Conference. The online regional network has grown to 76 members. Other activity in the network includes a virtual community meeting held in April, plus 17 different postings with an additional 16 comments. We hosted an on-farm field day at the University of Wisconsin West Madison Agricultural Research Station featuring the breeding lines from this project along with other participatory breeding opportunities working with sweet corn and carrots. A blogpost highlighting the field day was posted by Organic Seed Alliance and sent out through digital newsletters. Our team also co-led a roundtable discussion at the 2022 MOSES conference, with discussion of the regional seed system. This project also had a booth with information to recruit trial participants. We shared about the project to more than 200 people and provided samples of the breeding line tomatoes at the Farm to Flavor Showcase in Madison, WI, co-hosted by Culinary Breeding Network, Seed to Kitchen Collaborative, and Artisan Grain Collaborative. A blogpost highlighting the showcase was posted by eOrganic (https://eorganic.info/collaborativebreeding) and sent out through newsletters. eOrganic also sent out newsletters for other public events and to recruit trial participants, and performs Ongoing maintenance of project website including videos for trial participants, links to trial results and links to the above report and the highlights of the Midwest collaborative field day (https://eorganic.info/collaborativebreeding). Objective 2: Test and rapidly improve SeedLinked functionality Deliverables - VDP Architecture, Data Sharing, Ontology, Trial Design, Data Analysis, Certifier and grower decision-making tools During this last year, two major areas of focus were to improve user engagement and Organic Search 2.0. Following a living labs framework, most partners' feedback evolved around increasing engagement of growers. So, the SeedLinked team has been focusing on improving UX of all 3 apps, adding functionality such as better rating system, more guidance for growers use, and a better onboarding process. To date in the 2022 trial season, we had an average of 49% review rate out of 521 growers who planted a trial, a significant increase from the past year. We also added a full social feed on to increase engagement and communication. The prototype version showed that 30% of active growers engage in the Feed. As we just launched the full Feed, we will report usage next year. From the trial manager side, SeedLinked platform now includes full Checks capacity within all trial types, QR code rating for single location trial, and entry list ordering. We started to integrate breeding pipeline architecture in the backend, including things such as generational stage and variety naming. We also are working on allowing users to self-upload varieties and a new trial results display. The largest project of the past year was the development of the marketplace/Organic Seed Finder with integration of 13 seed companies. Objective 3: Develop models for collaboration between independent breeders, public sector programs, and organic seed companies Deliverables - Tomato Breeding Case Study, Pepper Breeding Case Study We worked with breeders Keith Mueller and Erica Kempter to distribute early and mid-generation breeding lines to participating farmers and gardeners. We had four total trials, including two early generation tomato trials (44 and 24 participants), one advanced generation tomato trial (26 participants), and one early generation pepper trial (44 participants). Eighteen participants returned seeds selected for continued use in the breeding program. We also grew out all the selections from the previous year at the West Madison Agricultural Research Center and made additional selections. We are growing out both on station and on farm selections in the greenhouse over the winter to advance a generation and will send seed back to participants in the spring.

Publications

Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audience is primarily farmers, independent seed breeders, seed companies interested in organic seed and organic certifiers. We reached all these audiences with information about the project starting at the Growing Stronger conference roundtable, the field day in Minnesota and the webinar for certifiers. We also reached growers through on-farm trials. We will do much more outreach during the next few years of the project as activities were constrained due to COVID restricting in person gatherings and general fatigue of online platforms. Changes/Problems:Our outreach in person was significantly hampered by COVID related restrictions. In addition, we had a field crew labor shortage during the field season which meant that project staff was involved in keeping fieldwork going, which reduced the time spent on other project activities. Due to staffing changes in both the subawardees and UW Madison programs, we would also like to hire a program manager rather than a graduate student for this project. The graduate student working on the project is funded through other sources for the duration of the project but has other responsibilities related to that funding. To accomplish the project goals, we would like to hire a knowledgeable person to oversee outreach and communication. OSA had staffing challenges in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19. Beginning in 2022, we will be bringing on Michael Lordon at 50% FTE (replacing Healy) to manage our scope of this project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?A graduate student in the Dawson lab is working on the collaborative breeding project, funded by an internal grant that covers tuition and a stipend but not research expenses. In addition, a masters student from Uruguay completed her masters research internship with our program working on this project as well as other OREI funded trials in our lab. We have had several undergraduate students and recent graduates who have participated in the trials to learn more about organic field research and breeding. Many (>15) one on one training were done by the SeedLinked team for independent breeders and trial managers. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have only been through one field season and so do not yet have results to disseminate through formal extension or publication channels. For preliminary (one-year) results, SeedLinked platform built-in results sharing and Explore functionalities allow to connect all results with proper experimental design and analysis for any growers to see, interact with, and use. More than 850 monthly unique users go on SeedLinked. We also held several virtual webinars and roundtable discussions and one in person field day. Outreach events are listed below: Seeds and breeding roundtable. Growing Stronger Conference. February 26, 2021. Attendance about 75. Midwest Seed Production and Plant Breeding Field Day, Riverbend Farm, Delano, MN, September 1, 2021. In-person attendance: 18. Views of virtual field day content: 858 (seed cleaning), 316 (SeedLinked), Participatory breeding projects (258) Plant breeding community of practice participants on Organic Seed Commons: 36 43 organic certifiers from most certifying organizations joined the organic certifier webinar. A survey was done before and after as well. SeedLinked 101 webinar. 45 attendees. (July 15th 2021) Trial Manager Webinar (August 17th 2021), 32 attendees SeedLinked growers info newsletter: Digging into trial results (read by 989 growers) It is Review Season: how to review with SeedLinked (read by 877 growers) Using SeedLinked community Feed (read by 833 growers) Use of check Variety (read by 1048) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Objective 1: We will continue with the development of the community of practice and outreach activities described in the grant narrative including webinars, videos, workshops, and field days. Objective 2: We will continue the development of SeedLinked functionality as described in the grant narrative, including the variety development process architecture, improvements to data sharing and data analysis capabilities, and trial design for breeding programs. Objective 3: We will continue with year two trials of the collaborative breeding case studies as described in the grant narrative, including greenhouse advancement over the winter, participatory trials in 2022 and selection with the independent breeders.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: We developed the Seed Commons platform to host the community of practice and recruited participants to join the collaborative breeding community of practice. This includes email listserve functionality as well as many functions of social media platforms. We hosted an on-farm workshop at Riverbend Farm in August 2021, with farmer-breeder Greg Reynolds which featured the experimental lines from this project. In-person attendance at this field day was low, as it coincided with a rise in the COVID-19 Delta variant and people were hesitant to gather in person. However, we delivered virtual content for this field day via Instagram live, so that participants could ask questions and interact with guest speakers from afar. There were 3 instagram live sessions at the field day, one focused on Seedlinked and the breeding trials, one focused on seed cleaning equipment, and one focused on host farmer/ plant breeder Greg Reynolds. We hosted a roundtable at the Growing Stronger Organic Farming Conference in February 2021, (a joint virtual conference including MOSES and the Organic Vegetable Production Conference due to COVID). Objective 2: The SeedLinked platform now includes triadic design options as well as the option to set up a tasting trial. Full environment to communicate to R package has been build with Python Django API laying the ground for analytics. Native mobile apps have been developed and improved for android and iOS to allow farmers to enter data in offline mode and then upload data when reconnected to the internet. UX has been greatly improved. Integration of GIS USDA hardiness zone has been completed for USA. Trial results data sharing via public link was completed. An Internal Feed was built creating social group for each trial. Grower check functionality was built giving grower the choice to add any check in their trial. A notification framework was implemented under Firebase to create automatic reminder and prompt to drive engagement. The first stages of the variety development process architecture have been developed for early generation testing. We are working with the independent breeders and participants to refine this functionality including the ontology and line tracking across years, as well as the addition of larger testing networks for breeding material. We hosted a webinar and discussion for Organic Certifiers to provide information on how the SeedLinked platform can be used to help growers meet the organic seed requirement. A Beta Organic Seed Finder 2.0 has been built including 20 seed companies (Scraped) and filter by availability, organic and performance built. Finally, because the stability of platform is essential, a full new architecture was implemented under Heroku, automatic tests were created under Sentry, Node Express API was cleaned and Azure events tracking was built to monitor and track all UX friction through the platform. Objective 3: We worked with breeders Keith Mueller and Erica Kempter to distribute early generation breeding lines to participating farmers. We had 36 participants in early generation tomato breeding (18 for each of two families) and 14 in an advanced tomato trial with an additional family. We also had 23 participate in the early generation pepper trial. We are growing out selections in the greenhouse over the winter to advance a generation and will send seed back to participants in the spring.

Publications