Kristen Loria Avatar

Kristen Loria

Kristen Loria is a Masters’ candidate in the Plant Breeding and Genetics section at Cornell University. Her own research focuses on trialing and breeding vegetable varieties for organic production systems, under the USDA NIFA-funded Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement. She is excited to be a SFQ contributor and to help grow and support a more independent, adaptive seed system for small farms. Please reach out by email: kal52@cornell.edu.

  • On-Farm Variety Improvement Part II: Selection and Plant Breeding

    Kristen Loria

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    This article is a follow up to “On-Farm Plant Breeding Pt. I: Getting Started with Diversity”, published in the Summer 2019 SFQ. Starting there will provide more context to understand the following information. What is Selection? Selection is the basis of planting breeding. When we talk about selection as plant breeders, we are referring to…

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  • On-Farm Plant Breeding Pt. I: Getting Started with Diversity

    Kristen Loria

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    Learn how to get started with your own on-farm plant breeding project. Often as growers we rely on our favorite seed companies to provide us with the varieties we grow. This strategy usually works well, and there are a lot of great varieties out there both new and old. However, by their nature most modern…

  • What Can Variety Trialing Do for Your Vegetable Farm?

    Kristen Loria

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    Put those glowing seed catalog descriptions to the test and find varieties that are the best fit for your own farming environment. A variety trial entails growing different varieties of a crop alongside each other in order to directly compare their performance across any number of characteristics. It can be highly controlled and scientific or…

  • Farm Hack: A Community for Farm Innovation

    Kristen Loria

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      Started in 2011 by a team of farmers and engineers from the Northeast, Farm Hack is a project of the National Young Farmers’ Coalition in partnership with the Greenhorns. The start of Farm Hack came with an offer from MIT to host a teaching event that could connect ‘do-gooder’ engineers with farmer’s needs. Co-founders…

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