The ability of the organic farmer’s agronomic toolbox to reduce the susceptibility of a potato crop to late blight is limited, certainly under the Dutch climatic conditions. Conventional breeding programs do not generate either a sufficient number nor appropriate types of resistant varieties for organic systems; and a separate breeding program for the limited area of organic potato production is simply not viable. Therefore, all concerned forces have joined together in an umbrella program called Bioimpuls for organic potato improvement

Lammerts van Bueren, E.T.

English

Average potato yields in Dutch organic farming are rather low and variable, due to the disease known as late blight (Phytophthora infestans). Potato breeding companies, organic farmers and breeding scientists from the Louis Bolk Institute and Wageningen University, have joined forces in an umbrella program called Bioimpuls. Within this program there is a joint breeding project aimed at developing better adapted and late blight resistent varietie

Lammerts Van Bueren, E.

Name not available

A Collaborative Breeding Strategy for Organic Potatoes in the Netherlands

NARCIS 

Wageningen Yield 

50
Ecology & Farming  |   FEbruary 2010
Which way now for organic seeds 
and livestock?
Special Edition: The Organic 
Breeding debate
Ecology and Farming
No. 47
February 2010 • 5€
plus IFOAM pages, Global Monitor, Publications and Events
The magazine of the International Federation of
Organic Agriculture Movements
A Collaborative Breeding Strategy for Organic Potatoes in the 
Netherlands
By Edith Lammerts van Bueren
Louis Bolk Institute, The Netherlands
e.lammerts@louisbolk.nl
Introduction
Average potato yields in Dutch organic farm-
ing systems are rather low and variable (12 to 
35 tonnes/ha) compared to Dutch conventional 
farming standards (50-60 tonnes/ha). The main 
reason for this year-to-year variation in yield is 
due to the disease known as late blight, caused 
by the pathogen Phytophthora infestans, the tim-
ing and severity of infection is unpredictable and 
very variable. In the last few years late blight 
has been so devastating in organic potato pro-
duction that its acreage has decreased by 20%. 
The ability of the organic farmer’s agronomic 
toolbox to reduce the susceptibility of a potato 
crop to late blight is limited, certainly under the 
Dutch climatic conditions. Conventional breed-
ing programs do not generate either a sufficient 
number nor appropriate types of resistant varie-
ties for organic systems; and a separate breeding 
program for the limited area of organic potato 
production is simply not viable. Therefore, all 
concerned forces have joined together in an um-
brella program called Bioimpuls for organic po-
tato improvement. Within this program there is a 
joint breeding project aimed at developing better 
adapted and late blight resistant varieties. With 
financial support from the Dutch Government 
this organic breeding program started in 2008. It 
is managed through the cooperation of six potato 
breeding companies, organic farmers and breed-
ing scientists from the Louis Bolk Institute and 
Wageningen University.
Collaborative breeding strategy
Structure
The organic breeding program has built on an 
successful collaborative structure between potato 
farmers and company breeders that has existed in 
the Netherlands for more than a hundred years, 
a set up that is hardly known in other European 
countries.
In this system each farmer-breeder discusses indi-
vidually with the company breeder which combi-
nations of traits they consider are desirable and 
which parent lines should be crossed to have the 
greatest chance of meeting the breeding goals. In 
this way the farmer’s experience in growing pota-
to varieties and the breeder’s experience in herita-
bility of traits are integrated. The company breed-
er is better equipped to conduct the crossings in 
the greenhouse and to collect the seeds. The fol-
lowing spring the seedlings are raised by the 
company breeders and offered to the farmer-
breeder to grow on. On average, a farmer-breeder 
yearly plants 500-1,000 new seedlings , though 
some can cope with more. Each seed can be the 
basis of one potential variety. In the first year the 
seedling is planted and its progeny (4-6 tubers) 
are then evaluated and selected or discarded. 
Which way now for organic seeds 
and livestock?
Special Edition: The Organic 
Breeding debate
Ecology and Farming
No. 47
February 2010 • 5€
plus IFOAM pages, Global Monitor, Publications and Events
The magazine of the International Federation of
Organic Agriculture Movements
51
Ecology & Farming  |   FEbruary 2010
After the first year, the selected tubers are multi-
plied vegetatively, ensuring that there is no fur-
ther segregation and therefore the selection is rel-
atively easy for farmers. Farmer-breeders select 
for basic agronomic characteristics such as foli-
age and tuber appearance, length of stolons, tuber 
size and distribution, adding their own insights 
and preferences. The selection percentage is indi-
vidual, but can for instance be 15% in the 1st year 
(150 out of 1000 clones), 33% (50 out of 150) in 
the 2nd year, and 0-30% in the 3rd year (0-15 out 
of 50). The company breeder will proceed with 
the clones that are selected by the farmer-breeder 
and will test them on further quantity and quality 
traits, and might end up with one potential variety 
that will be sent in for the official trials for variety 
registration.
Contract for sharing royalties
At the start of a collaboration between a breed-
ing company and a farmer-breeder a contract is 
signed arranging the legal aspects of the collabo-
ration, such as ownership of the genetic resources 
and sharing of the royalties. If a farmer-breeder’s 
selection is successful and ends up as a market-
able variety, it will be registered in the name of 
the farmer-breeder, but the company will repre-
sent the variety in the market and will conduct its 
maintenance. Therefore, the company will collect 
the royalties and will keep a yearly account of the 
received royalties based on the volume of seed 
potatoes sold. The sharing of the royalties is usu-
ally on a 50-50% base, depending on the amount 
of work conducted by each party. The yearly selec-
tion effort of the farmer-breeders has contributed 
to an increase in the number of potato clones se-
lected each year and therefore the chance of suc-
cess. Thus, this system has, over the past years, 
achieved great progress in the Dutch potato breed-
ing sector, with about 50% of the released Dutch 
varieties being a result of this collaborative system.
Year Activity Company breeder
Farmer-
breeder
0 Choice of parents x x
1 Crossing and harvesting seeds x
2 Sowing and raising of 1st year seedlings  x
2 - 4 Visual selection in the clones for basic 
agronomic characteristics
x
5 - 8 Trials for production, resistances, quality 
and adaptation 
x
5 - 12 Yearly visit and discussion on progress x x
9 - 12 Research for potential market, registration 
on national variety list, obtaining plant 
breeder’s rights 
x
13 -15 Market introduction, maintenance, collect-
ing of royalties
x
13 - Yearly accounts and sharing of royalties x x
Table 1: Sharing of breeding activities in a collaborative model of potato breeding in the 
Netherlands.
52
Ecology & Farming  |   FEbruary 2010
Which way now for organic seeds 
and livestock?
Special Edition: The Organic 
Breeding debate
Ecology and Farming
No. 47
February 2010 • 5€
plus IFOAM pages, Global Monitor, Publications and Events
The magazine of the International Federation of
Organic Agriculture Movements
Breeding for organic agriculture
Training courses
One of the aims of the Bioimpuls organic breed-
ing program is to increase the number of farmer-
breeders involved. The more farmer-breeders as-
sociated with a breeding strategy based on a ‘no 
cure/no pay’ basis, the more economically fea-
sible the breeding program becomes. Before the 
start of the project only two of the 160 potato 
farmer-breeders active in the Netherlands were 
organic farmers. After 14 years of effort, one of 
these two farmers was recently successful with 
the selection of the variety called Bionica, which 
in 2007 was marketed by the associated breeding 
company C. Meijer B.V. In spring 2008 and 2009 
the first organic breeding courses to introduce the 
basic principles of potato breeding and selection 
were organised for interested farmer-breeders. 
The course gives farmers more insight into the 
breeding process and helps them realize that such 
a long-term activity needs commitment, skill and 
time; and that, therefore, must be given organi-
zational space within their farm management. 
Currently, a total of eight organic farmer-breeders 
have joined the organic breeding program where 
the farmers will be supervised by an experienced 
potato breeder.
Pre-breeding
Next to the breeding activities of farmer-breeders, 
there is also a need for a long-term pre-breeding 
activity to generate new genetic material, includ-
ing new sources of late blight resistance by us-
ing material that was identified in earlier projects 
by Wageningen University. Therefore, specific 
crossings were made, including the introduction 
of new sources of resistance found in the spe-
cies Solanum bulbocastanum, S. berthaultii, and 
S. okadae. It is planned that as much as possible 
these new sources of resistance should be inte-
grated into a genetical background that includes 
other required traits for organic potato, such as 
nitrogen-efficiency, resistance to Rhizoctonia and 
early blight, and early tuber setting and bulking.
Collaboration between central organic (pre-)
breeding program and commercial breeding
The organic potato breeding program now in-
cludes the cooperation of six commercial breed-
ing companies that are already involved in the 
propagation of organic seed potatoes. The farm-
er-breeders are all attached to one of these com-
panies. Each year the farmer-breeders receive 
seedlings from the central organic breeding pro-
gram, conducted by Louis Bolk Institute and 
Wageningen University, and/or from their com-
mercial breeding company. The breeding compa-
nies can produce crosses with their own selected 
parents as well as derive new genetical sourc-
es from the central organic breeding program. 
Through a contract between the central breeding 
program and the involved farmer-breeders and 
breeding companies, it is agreed that in future 
A potato farmer-breeder assessing the 
first-year clones with Bioimpuls breed-
ing assistants in 2009.  
(Photo: Louis Bolk Institute)
Which way now for organic seeds 
and livestock?
Special Edition: The Organic 
Breeding debate
Ecology and Farming
No. 47
February 2010 • 5€
plus IFOAM pages, Global Monitor, Publications and Events
The magazine of the International Federation of
Organic Agriculture Movements
53
Ecology & Farming  |   FEbruary 2010
when varieties derived from plant material from 
the central breeding program are registered, 10% 
of the royalties will flow back to the program. 
This means that the program will be able to part-
ly generate its own income for future breeding 
activities.
Future
An organic breeding program as described in 
this article can only be successful and economi-
cally feasible when the number of organic farm-
er-breeders increases. It is estimated that at least 
20,000 seedlings per year need to be tested for the 
program to be viable. Potato breeding is a long-
term activity and is a continuous search for new 
resistance sources. The recent release of a new 
late blight resistant variety shows that with the 
efforts of more organic farmer-breeders the se-
lection of a range of varieties suitable for organic 
potato production in the future is achievable.
However, the resistance traits that will be used in 
the organic breeding program are based on race-
specific R-genes. This kind of resistance is as-
sumed to be not durable. Therefore, the project’s 
program will include pyramiding of two to three 
genes from different sources in many differ-
ent combinations. However, in the field one can 
only see whether a clone is resistant or not, and 
not whether the resistance is caused by one, two 
or three genes. In the future, marker assisted 
breeding using freely accessible markers, will be 
a necessary instrument to achieve such adequate 
pyramiding.
Figure 1. Overview of the collaboration between the central organic potato (pre-)breeding 
program Bioimpul, the farmer-breeders (FB), some independent small breeders (SB), and 
named commercial breeding companies in the Netherlands, 2009.


Organic Eprints

50Ecology & Farming  |   FEbruary 2010Which way now for organic seeds and livestock?Special Edition: The Organic Breeding debateEcology and FarmingNo. 47February 2010 • 5€plus IFOAM pages, Global Monitor, Publications and EventsThe magazine of the International Federation ofOrganic Agriculture MovementsA Collaborative Breeding Strategy for Organic Potatoes in the NetherlandsBy Edith Lammerts van BuerenLouis Bolk Institute, The Netherlandse.lammerts@louisbolk.nlIntroductionAverage  potato  yields  in  Dutch  organic  farm-ing  systems  are  rather  low  and  variable  (12  to 35  tonnes/ha)  compared  to  Dutch  conventional farming  standards  (50-60  tonnes/ha).  The  main reason for this year-to-year variation in yield is due to the disease known as late blight, caused by the pathogen Phytophthora infestans, the tim-ing and severity of infection is unpredictable and very  variable.  In  the  last  few  years  late  blight has  been  so  devastating  in  organic  potato  pro-duction  that  its  acreage  has  decreased  by  20%. The  ability  of  the  organic  farmer’s  agronomic toolbox  to  reduce  the  susceptibility  of  a  potato crop to late blight is limited, certainly under the Dutch  climatic  conditions.  Conventional  breed-ing programs do not generate either a sufficient number nor appropriate types of resistant varie-ties for organic systems; and a separate breeding program  for  the  limited  area  of  organic  potato production  is  simply  not  viable.  Therefore,  all concerned forces have joined together in an um-brella program called Bioimpuls for organic po-tato improvement. Within this program there is a joint breeding project aimed at developing better adapted  and  late  blight  resistant  varieties.  With financial  support  from  the  Dutch  Government this organic breeding program started in 2008. It is managed through the cooperation of six potato breeding companies, organic farmers and breed-ing scientists from the Louis Bolk Institute and Wageningen University.Collaborative breeding strategyStructureThe  organic  breeding  program  has  built  on  an successful collaborative structure between potato farmers and company breeders that has existed in the Netherlands for more than a hundred years, a set up that is hardly known in other European countries.In this system each farmer-breeder discusses indi-vidually with the company breeder which combi-nations of traits they consider are desirable and which parent lines should be crossed to have the greatest chance of meeting the breeding goals. In this way the farmer’s experience in growing pota-to varieties and the breeder’s experience in herita-bility of traits are integrated. The company breed-er is better equipped to conduct the crossings in the greenhouse and to collect the seeds. The fol-lowing  spring  the  seedlings  are  raised  by  the company  breeders  and  offered  to  the  farmer-breeder to grow on. On average, a farmer-breeder yearly plants 500-1,000 new seedlings , though some can cope with more. Each seed can be the basis of one potential variety. In the first year the seedling is planted and its progeny (4-6 tubers) are  then  evaluated  and  selected  or  discarded. Which way now for organic seeds and livestock?Special Edition: The Organic Breeding debateEcology and FarmingNo. 47February 2010 • 5€plus IFOAM pages, Global Monitor, Publications and EventsThe magazine of the International Federation ofOrganic Agriculture Movements51Ecology & Farming  |   FEbruary 2010After the first year, the selected tubers are multi-plied vegetatively, ensuring that there is no fur-ther segregation and therefore the selection is rel-atively easy for farmers. Farmer-breeders select for basic agronomic characteristics such as foli-age and tuber appearance, length of stolons, tuber size  and  distribution,  adding  their  own  insights and preferences. The selection percentage is indi-vidual, but can for instance be 15% in the 1st year (150 out of 1000 clones), 33% (50 out of 150) in the 2nd year, and 0-30% in the 3rd year (0-15 out of 50). The company breeder will proceed with the clones that are selected by the farmer-breeder and will test them on further quantity and quality traits, and might end up with one potential variety that will be sent in for the official trials for variety registration.Contract for sharing royaltiesAt  the  start  of  a  collaboration  between  a  breed-ing  company  and  a  farmer-breeder  a  contract  is signed arranging the legal aspects of the collabo-ration, such as ownership of the genetic resources and sharing of the royalties. If a farmer-breeder’s selection is successful and ends up as a market-able variety, it will be registered in the name of the  farmer-breeder,  but  the  company  will  repre-sent the variety in the market and will conduct its maintenance. Therefore, the company will collect the royalties and will keep a yearly account of the received  royalties  based  on  the  volume  of  seed potatoes sold. The sharing of the royalties is usu-ally on a 50-50% base, depending on the amount of work conducted by each party. The yearly selec-tion effort of the farmer-breeders has contributed to an increase in the number of potato clones se-lected each year and therefore the chance of suc-cess. Thus, this system has, over the past years, achieved great progress in the Dutch potato breed-ing sector, with about 50% of the released Dutch varieties being a result of this collaborative system.Year Activity Company breederFarmer-breeder0 Choice of parents  x x1 Crossing and harvesting seeds x2 Sowing and raising of 1st year seedlings   x2 - 4 Visual selection in the clones for basic agronomic characteristicsx5 - 8 Trials for production, resistances, quality and adaptation x5 - 12 Yearly visit and discussion on progress x x9 - 12 Research for potential market, registration on national variety list, obtaining plant breeder’s rights x13 -15 Market introduction, maintenance, collect-ing of royaltiesx13 -  Yearly accounts and sharing of royalties x xTable 1: Sharing of breeding activities in a collaborative model of potato breeding in the Netherlands.52Ecology & Farming  |   FEbruary 2010Which way now for organic seeds and livestock?Special Edition: The Organic Breeding debateEcology and FarmingNo. 47February 2010 • 5€plus IFOAM pages, Global Monitor, Publications and EventsThe magazine of the International Federation ofOrganic Agriculture MovementsBreeding for organic agricultureTraining coursesOne of the aims of the Bioimpuls organic breed-ing program is to increase the number of farmer-breeders involved. The more farmer-breeders as-sociated with a breeding strategy based on a ‘no cure/no  pay’  basis,  the  more  economically  fea-sible the breeding program becomes. Before the start  of  the  project  only  two  of  the  160  potato farmer-breeders  active  in  the  Netherlands  were organic farmers. After 14 years of effort, one of these  two  farmers  was  recently  successful  with the selection of the variety called Bionica, which in 2007 was marketed by the associated breeding company C. Meijer B.V. In spring 2008 and 2009 the first organic breeding courses to introduce the basic principles of potato breeding and selection were  organised  for  interested  farmer-breeders. The  course  gives  farmers  more  insight  into  the breeding process and helps them realize that such a long-term activity needs commitment, skill and time; and that, therefore, must be given organi-zational  space  within  their  farm  management.   Currently, a total of eight organic farmer-breeders have joined the organic breeding program where the farmers will be supervised by an experienced potato breeder.Pre-breedingNext to the breeding activities of farmer-breeders, there is also a need for a long-term pre-breeding activity to generate new genetic material, includ-ing new sources of late blight resistance by us-ing material that was identified in earlier projects by  Wageningen  University.  Therefore,  specific crossings were made, including the introduction of  new  sources  of  resistance  found  in  the  spe-cies Solanum bulbocastanum, S. berthaultii, and S. okadae. It is planned that as much as possible these new sources of resistance should be inte-grated into a genetical background that includes other required traits for organic potato, such as nitrogen-efficiency, resistance to Rhizoctonia and early blight, and early tuber setting and bulking.Collaboration  between  central  organic  (pre-)breeding program and commercial breedingThe  organic  potato  breeding  program  now  in-cludes the cooperation of six commercial breed-ing  companies  that  are  already  involved  in  the propagation of organic seed potatoes. The farm-er-breeders are all attached to one of these com-panies.  Each  year  the  farmer-breeders  receive seedlings from the central organic breeding pro-gram,  conducted  by  Louis  Bolk  Institute  and Wageningen  University,  and/or  from  their  com-mercial breeding company. The breeding compa-nies can produce crosses with their own selected parents  as  well  as  derive  new  genetical  sourc-es  from  the  central  organic  breeding  program. Through a contract between the central breeding program  and  the  involved  farmer-breeders  and breeding  companies,  it  is  agreed  that  in  future A potato farmer-breeder assessing the first-year clones with Bioimpuls breed-ing assistants in 2009.  (Photo: Louis Bolk Institute)Which way now for organic seeds and livestock?Special Edition: The Organic Breeding debateEcology and FarmingNo. 47February 2010 • 5€plus IFOAM pages, Global Monitor, Publications and EventsThe magazine of the International Federation ofOrganic Agriculture Movements53Ecology & Farming  |   FEbruary 2010when varieties derived from plant material from the central breeding program are registered, 10% of  the  royalties  will  flow  back  to  the  program. This means that the program will be able to part-ly  generate  its  own  income  for  future  breeding activities.FutureAn  organic  breeding  program  as  described  in this article can only be successful and economi-cally feasible when the number of organic farm-er-breeders increases. It is estimated that at least 20,000 seedlings per year need to be tested for the program to be viable. Potato breeding is a long-term activity and is a continuous search for new resistance  sources. The  recent  release  of  a  new late  blight  resistant  variety  shows  that  with  the efforts  of  more  organic  farmer-breeders  the  se-lection of a range of varieties suitable for organic potato production in the future is achievable.However, the resistance traits that will be used in the organic breeding program are based on race-specific  R-genes.  This  kind  of  resistance  is  as-sumed to be not durable. Therefore, the project’s program will include pyramiding of two to three genes  from  different  sources  in  many  differ-ent combinations. However, in the field one can only see whether a clone is resistant or not, and not whether the resistance is caused by one, two or  three  genes.  In  the  future,  marker  assisted breeding using freely accessible markers, will be a necessary instrument to achieve such adequate pyramiding.Figure 1. Overview of the collaboration between the central organic potato (pre-)breeding program Bioimpul, the farmer-breeders (FB), some independent small breeders (SB), and named commercial breeding companies in the Netherlands, 2009.

A Collaborative Breeding Strategy for Organic Potatoes in the Netherlands

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NARCIS

Wageningen Yield

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