Posts by Kristen Loria
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…
Read MoreLearn 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…
Read MorePut 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…
Read MoreStarted 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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