Audit assurance model and Bayesian discovery sampling

Economics;Auditing;Sampling;econometrics

Sustainable organic plant breeding: Final report - a vision, choices, consequences and steps

In general, the characteristics of organic varieties - and by extension of organic plant breeding - differ from that of conventional breeding systems and conventional varieties. Realising an organic plant breeding system and subsequently steering it to meet changing demands is no less than a mammoth task. The many actions to be undertaken can be divided into short-term commercial and scientific activities, and longer or long-term commercial and scientific activities. Action must be taken in the short-term to ensure adequate quantities of organically propagated plants and seed. This is vital in consideration of Regulation 2092/91/EC which states that, as of 1 January 2000, all propagating material used in organic production must be of organic origin. Additional measures are needed to accelerate the development of organically propagated varieties. Within the breeding sector, variety groups should be established to streamline communication in the chain. Variety groups should have a large contingent of farmers, as well as representatives from the trade branch and breeders. Members should communicate intensively with each other, share experiences, and participate in trials and variety assessments. Questions, wishes and bottlenecks could be recorded by variety groups and passed on to other parties in the chain. The practical details of the plant health concept which is at the basis of organic breeding must be worked out (operationalised). This will require scientific research, for example on: root development and mineral absorption efficiency weed suppressive capacity in situ versus ex situ maintenance resistance breeding in combination with cultivation measures seed-transmitted diseases adaptive capacity alternatives for growth stimulants, silver nitrate and silver thiosulfate in the cultivation of cucumbers and pickles Such research should be carried out by academic institutions (such as Wageningen University and Research Centre) in collaboration with Louis Bolk Institute, Stichting Zaadgoed and private companies. A platform should be established to make an inventory of problems and priorities and to develop research proposals. Farmers could contribute their ideas to the platform through the variety groups. Conclusion A plant breeding system for organic production should be based on the organic concept of plant health and on the organic position on chain relationships. As the total land area under organic production is still relatively small, it is unlikely that commercial breeders will make large investments to develop organic breeding programmes without financial support from other parties, i.e. the government. In this early stage, it is vital that the government provides generous funding and plays an active enabling role. We hope that the action plan to stimulate organic plant breeding, as requested by Parliament, will dovetail with the activities described above

The organic seed regulations framework in Europe – current status and recommendations for future development

Organic agriculture regulations, in particular European regulation EC 889/2008, prescribe the use of organically produced seed. For many cultivated plants, however, organic seed is often not available. This is mainly because investment in organic plant breeding and seed production has been low in the past. To bridge the gap between organic seed supply and demand, national and European regulations define certain circumstances under which organic producers are permitted to use non-organically produced seed. While the organic sector currently depends on these concessions, they also threaten to impede a further increase in the demand for organic seed, thereby potentially restraining present and future investment in organic seed production and plant breeding. We review the current status of the organic seed regulations framework by analysing key issues such as the role of the national derogation regimes, the role of expert groups, databases and seed prices. Key points are that (a) the situation of the organic seed sector has improved over the last few years; however, (b) reporting on organic seed to the EU by different countries needs to be harmonised; (c) the success of the organic seed sector depends critically on the implementation and improvement of national expert groups; and (d) to protect genetic diversity, the use of local varieties and landraces should not be impeded by organic seed regulations

Potato breeding in the Netherlands: successful collaboration between farmers and commercial breeders.

Access and benefit sharing of plant genetic resources is a crucial but very complex, political and legalistic matter. Does the formal system work for family farmers? As we see in this special issue of Farming Matters, co-produced with Bioversity International, it poses many challenges and Farmers' Rights are rarely implemented in national law. At the same time, farmers around the world are leading successful initiatives for access and benefit sharing. In this special issue of Farming Matters also an article of the Bioimpuls potato breeding project was included: In the Netherlands a new PPB initiative called BioImpuls emerged in 2010, which engages organic potato farmers in a search to develop late blight-resistant vari-eties for the organic sector.

Participatory plant breeding: a way to arrive at better-adapted onion varieties

The search for varieties that are better adapted to organic farming is a current topic in the organic sector. Breeding programmes specific for organic agriculture should solve this problem. Collaborating with organic farmers in such programmes, particularly in the selection process, can potentially result in varieties better adapted to their needs. Here, we assume that organic farmers' perceptive of plant health is broader than that of conventional breeders. Two organic onion farmers and one conventional onion breeder were monitored in their selection activities in 2004 and 2005 in order to verify whether and in which way this broader view on plant health contributes to improvement of organic varieties. They made selections by positive mass selection in three segregating populations under organic conditions. The monitoring showed that the organic farmers selected in the field for earliness and downy mildew and after storage for bulb characteristics. The conventional breeder selected only after storage. Farmers and breeder applied identical selection directions for bulb traits as a round shape, better hardness and skin firmness. This resulted in smaller bulbs in the breeders’ populations, while the bulbs in the farmer populations were bigger than in the original population. In 2006 and 2007 the new onion populations will be compared with each other and the original populations to determine the selection response

Breeding for specific bioregions: a genotype by environment study of horticultural and nutritional traits integrating breeder and farmer priorities for organic broccoli cultivar improvement

The genotype by environment interaction study of broccoli, amongst others demonstrates that traits of a cultivar are sometimes ranked differently when grown in an organic production system compared to a conventional system. This has strong implications for breeding strategies. The breeders interviewed acknowledged that more attention on abiotic and biotic stress resistance in a broccoli breeding programme is needed which is in accordance with the farmers' varietal requirements. The first findings of the field trials show that cultivar performance is influenced by season and region, and differences in treatment (organic versus conventional management). The field trials showed that there are cultivars with broad adaptation such as "Green Goliath". These cultivars performed across locations, seasons and treatments within the sub-top group, however, organic farmers would benefit more from cultivars specifically adapted to their region and season. The trial results showed a wide range of glucosinolate levels. Glucoraphanin was very genotype dependent, while glucobrassicin and neoglucobrassicin were more influenced by abiotic and biotic environmental factors. Therefore, there are opportunities for nutritional performance enhancement under organic conditions which would provide an added value to the product quality with respect to human and plant health. Further elaboration of the dataset will contribute to the design of regional breeding strategies for improved broccoli cultivars for the organic market

Variation in Broccoli Cultivar Phytochemical Content under Organic and Conventional Management Systems: Implications in Breeding for Nutrition

Organic agriculture requires cultivars that can adapt to organic crop management systems without the use of synthetic pesticides as well as genotypes with improved nutritional value. The aim of this study encompassing 16 experiments was to compare 23 broccoli cultivars for the content of phytochemicals associated with health promotion grown under organic and conventional management in spring and fall plantings in two broccoli growing regions in the US (Oregon and Maine). The phytochemicals quantified included: glucosinolates (glucoraphanin, glucobrassicin, neoglucobrassin), tocopherols (d-, c-, a-tocopherol) and carotenoids (lutein, zeaxanthin, b-carotene). For glucoraphanin (17.5%) and lutein (13%), genotype was the major source of total variation; for glucobrassicin, region (36%) and the interaction of location and season (27.5%); and for neoglucobrassicin, both genotype (36.8%) and its interactions (34.4%) with season were important. For d- and ctocopherols, season played the largest role in the total variation followed by location and genotype; for total carotenoids, genotype (8.41–13.03%) was the largest source of variation and its interactions with location and season. Overall, phytochemicals were not significantly influenced by management system. We observed that the cultivars with the highest concentrations of glucoraphanin had the lowest for glucobrassicin and neoglucobrassicin. The genotypes with high concentrations of glucobrassicin and neoglucobrassicin were the same cultivars and were early maturing F1 hybrids. Cultivars highest in tocopherols and carotenoids were open pollinated or early maturing F1 hybrids. We identified distinct locations and seasons where phytochemical performance was higher for each compound. Correlations among horticulture traits and phytochemicals demonstrated that glucoraphanin was negatively correlated with the carotenoids and the carotenoids were correlated with one another. Little or no association between phytochemical concentration and date of cultivar release was observed, suggesting that modern breeding has not negatively influenced the level of tested compounds. We found no significant differences among cultivars from different seed companies

Broccoli cultivar performance under organic and conventional management systems and implications for crop improvement

To determine if present commercial broccoli cultivars meet the diverse needs of organic management systems, such as adaptation to low N input, mechanical weed management, and no chemical pesticide use, and to propose the selection environments for crop improvement for organic production, we compared horticultural trait performance of 23 broccoli cultivars (G) under two management (M) systems (organic and conventional) in two regions of the United States (Oregon and Maine), including spring and fall trials. In our trials, location and season had the largest effect on broccoli head weight, with Oregon outperforming Maine, and fall trials outperforming spring plantings. M main effects and G × M interactions were often small, but G × M × E (location and season) were large. Cultivars with both greater head weight and stability under conventional conditions generally had high head weight and stability under organic growing conditions, although there were exceptions in cultivar rank between management systems. Larger genotypic variances and somewhat increased error variances observed in organic compared with conventional management systems led to repeatability for head weight and other horticultural traits that were similar or even higher in organic compared with conventional conditions. The ratio of correlated response (predicting performance under organic conditions when evaluated in conventional conditions) to direct response (predicted performance in organic when evaluated under organic conditions) for all traits was close to but less than 1.0 with the exception of bead uniformity. This would imply that in most cases, direct selection in an organic environment could result in a more rapid genetic gain than indirect selection in a conventional environment

Caby Photometry of the Hyades: Comparisons to the Field Stars

Intermediate-band photometry of the Hyades cluster on the Caby system is presented for dwarf stars ranging from spectral type A through late K. A mean hk, b-y relation is constructed using only single stars without anomalous atmospheres and compared to the field stars of the solar neighborhood. For the F dwarfs, the Hyades relation defines an approximate LOWER bound in the two-color diagram, consistent with an [Fe/H] between +0.10 and +0.15. These index-color diagrams follow the common convention of presenting stars with highest abundance at the bottom of the plot although the index values for the metal-rich stars are numerically larger. For field F dwarfs in the range [Fe/H] between +0.4 and -1.0, [Fe/H] = -5.6 delta-hk + 0.125, with no evidence for a color dependence in the slope. For the G and K dwarfs, the Hyades mean relation crosses the field star distribution in the two-color diagram, defining an approximate UPPER bound for the local disk stars. Stars found above the Hyades stars fall in at least one of three categories: [Fe/H] below -0.7, [Fe/H] above that of the Hyades, or chromospherically active. It is concluded that, contrary to the predictions of model atmospheres, the hk index for cool dwarfs at a given color hits a maximum value for stars below solar composition and, with increasing [Fe/H] above some critical value, declines. This trend is consistent, however, with the predictions from synthetic indices based upon much narrower Ca filters where the crossover is caused by the metallicity sensitivity of b-y.Comment: 13 pages, 9 eps figures, 1 tex table, 1 ascii tabl