Selecting "Modern" Heirloom Dry Beans

This webinar was recorded on July 13, 2016.

About the Webinar

Hawk-eyed gardeners may notice plant-to-plant differences after sowing saved seed.  What can they do to isolate the best of these variants and establish their own varieties?  In this webinar the presenters describe the procedures they followed as part of an OREI organic dry bean breeding project to identify and select plants within four heirloom dry bean varieties, and to generate new varieties with improved adaptation to upper Midwest growing conditions.  These approaches can be applied to CSA, market garden and backyard garden-scale situations by aspiring freelance plant breeders who wish to take on the challenge of fine tuning adaptation to local conditions or maintaining unique types discovered in naturally self-pollinating food plants. This webinar is the result of research funded by NIFA OREI and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, and is suitable for organic farmers and gardeners who are interested in seed breeding and saving.

About the Presenter

Thomas Michaels is a Professor in the Department of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota and coordinator of the undergraduate major in Food Systems.

Published June 22, 2016

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.