Subject: Organic Growers Join With ARS to Retain Crop Diversity (fwd)

From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 13:11:50 -0400 (EDT)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 10:29:24 -0400
From: ARS News Service <[email-masked]>
To: ARS News List <[email-masked]>
Subject: Organic Growers Join With ARS to Retain Crop Diversity

STORY LEAD:
Organic Growers Join With ARS to Retain Crop Diversity

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ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Kathryn Barry Stelljes, (510) 559-6069, [email-masked]
October 20, 1999
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More than 200 organic seed farmers are growing 800 breeding lines of
traditional crop plants provided by the National Plant Germplasm System. The
system is maintained by the Agricultural Research Service, USDA's chief
scientific wing.

The growers' effort, known as the Farmer Cooperative Genome Project, hopes
to provide farmers and gardeners with a wider selection of crop varieties
than they can obtain commercially.

For example, the growers are now working with 100 garlic lines provided by
ARS' Western Regional Plant Introduction Station in Pullman, Wash. Rich
Hannan, horticulturist at the Pullman facility, serves as an informal
liaison between ARS and the grower group. J.J. Haapala, an organic seed
grower in Oregon, coordinates the project.

ARS will also benefit, as growers follow strict protocols and document crop
characteristics for use by the germplasm system. The farmers also return
some of the seed to ARS for storage and future use by researchers.

ARS maintains a network of 26 repositories nationwide that preserve and
regenerate germplasm--seed and other reproductive tissues--of crops and
their wild relatives. The system houses more than 400,000 accessions
comprising more than 10,000 species. An accession is a genetically distinct
group of plants such as a crop variety or wild subspecies.

The Farmer Cooperative Genome Project, based in Junction City, Ore., started
in 1998 with a USDA Fund for Rural America grant. More details on the
project appear in the October issue of ARS' Agricultural Research magazine
and on the web at:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/oct99/seed1099.htm

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Scientific contact: Rich Hannan, ARS Western Regional Plant Introduction
Station, Pullman, Wash., phone (509) 335-1502, fax (509) 335-6654,
[email-masked].
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This item is one of the news releases and story leads that ARS Information
distributes on weekdays to fax and e-mail subscribers.  You can also get the
latest ARS news on the World Wide Web at
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/thelatest.htm.
* Feedback and questions to ARS News Service via e-mail: [email-masked].
* ARS Information Staff, 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD
20705-5128, (301) 504- 1617, fax 504-1648.

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