Q&A with Aroma Hops Breeder Dr. Shaun Townsend

By Sonia A. Hall, Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, Washington State University

This article is part of a series where we share insights from conversations that I had with public plant breeders across the Pacific Northwest about their breeding programs and how climate change considerations intersect with their work. Through these conversations, I wanted to better understand the complexities of the plant breeders’ world, where there are elements that already provide useful information about adapting to future climates, and where there are questions—about the climate in the future, or the plants’ responses, or production, market, or other factors affecting a particular crops’ future—that intersect or even overshadow questions about how to prepare for future climates.

Hop plant infected by downy mildew, a “tough nut to crack” for breeding tolerance to diseases. Photo: Shaun Townsend.

Maintaining yields under stressful climate-driven conditions is important in Oregon State University’s aroma hop breeding program, as in most breeding programs. However, two other aspects drive the work of Dr. Shaun Townsend, Associate Professor, Crop and Soil Science at Oregon State University. The first is how warmer (and maybe drier) springs could, maybe, help reduce the impacts of downy mildew, a “tough nut to crack” for breeding tolerance to diseases. Before I discuss my second take-away (it is about beer), see what Dr. Townsend had to say about breeding aroma hops for future climates.

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Q&A with Barley Breeder Dr. Patrick Hayes

By Sonia A. Hall, Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, Washington State University

This article is part of a series where we share insights from conversations that I had with public plant breeders across the Pacific Northwest about their breeding programs and how climate change considerations intersect with their work. Through these conversations, I wanted to better understand the complexities of the plant breeders’ world, where there are elements that already provide useful information about adapting to future climates, and where there are questions—about the climate in the future, or the plants’ responses, or production, market, or other factors affecting a particular crops’ future—that intersect or even overshadow questions about how to prepare for future climates.

Dr. Patrick Hayes, OSU. Photo: Ron Silberstein, Admiral Malting, Alameda CA

Barley, like wheat, can be sown in the fall, overwinter, and grow and mature the next season, or can be planted in the early spring, and have a shorter, quicker growing season. For a variety of reasons, however, spring barley is considered “the good one” for malting and producing beer. Yet as Dr. Patrick Hayes, Oregon State University’s malting barley breeder, works to develop barley varieties that will be grown under future climates, fall barley is key. The timing of growth and the resources it taps can help avoid a variety of issues that will otherwise impact barley yields and quality (whose main indicator is the percent protein in the grain). Read on for Dr. Hayes’s explanation of why fall barley is becoming increasingly attractive.

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Q&A with Apple Breeder Dr. Kate Evans

By Sonia A. Hall, Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, Washington State University

This article is the first in a series where we share insights from public plant breeders around the Pacific Northwest on their breeding programs and how climate change considerations intersect with their work. These conversations are about understanding the complexities of the plant breeders’ world, where there are elements that already provide useful information about adapting to future climates, and where there are questions—about the climate in the future, or the plants’ responses, or production, market, or other factors affecting a particular crops’ future—that intersect or even overshadow questions about how to prepare for future climates.

Dr. Kate Evans, WSU.

I recently had some highly educational and thought-provoking conversations with Kate Evans, Professor of the Department of Horticulture and director of the Pome (apple and pear) Fruit Breeding Program at Washington State University. These conversations broadened my thinking on plant breeding and climate change from a focus on understanding to what extent plant breeders might be considering climate change in their breeding programs, to all the complexity of what plant breeding is about, how it fits into a much broader context of production and management practices that can help growers adapt to a changing climate, and the range of challenges and opportunities that face a crop—in this case apples—and its associated industry as we experience and prepare for the changes our climate will bring. Here’s what Dr. Evans had to say.

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By Sonia A. Hall, Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, Washington State University

Future climatic conditions could be an increased area of focus for plant breeding programs. Photo: Flickr user LaraS96 under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

With my colleagues on the AgClimate.net team we’ve been discussing plant breeding and climate change for a while, and are actually working on some articles about that relating to our Pacific Northwest crops and growing conditions. So I was intrigued to see this article by Leslie Mertz in the Good Fruit Grower magazine titled Breeding for uncertainty. Mertz starts off by saying “Developing a new tree-fruit cultivar is a long process that begins with breeders deciding which specific traits growers will want 15, 20 or even 30 years into the future.” And close to the end she states “Of course, breeding for the future is always difficult, but it has been made much more so with the extent and effects of climate change being unknown.” In between, though, Mertz discusses existing breeding programs that have used expected future climate conditions to select traits to focus on, and are taking on the added challenge of uncertainty about future climates. Check it out.

And stay tuned for some other articles exploring how climate change intersects with plant breeding efforts underway in the Pacific Northwest.