On September 20 Scott Brainard of the Savanna Institute will speak on “Breeding Tree Crops to Cut Climate Change.”
Description: Agricultural research on tree crops has seen systematic underinvestment for more than a century. The handful of major annual grain crops that are most prevalent in Midwest agriculture have achieved and maintained their level of ubiquity on the landscape in part through a diverse, well-funded, and long-term agricultural research effort. Recently, however, there has been an increasing interest on the part of farmers in agroforestry practices – methods which incorporate trees into farm production in various ways – due to their potential to sequester carbon, and reduce agriculture’s net greenhouse gas emissions. Savanna Institute’s Tree Crop Improvement Team aims to aid in the adoption of these crops by such producers by investing in research and breeding efforts that develop and steadily update superior crop varieties.
The Crop Improvement Program has selected a variety of nut, fruit and timber crops well-suited for temperate agroforestry systems that thrive in the oak savanna of the Midwestern US: American hazelnut, Chinese chestnut, American elderberry, black currant, mulberry, American persimmon, and black locust. Our breeding strategy combines precise measurements of plants’ performance with molecular genetic markers. By constructing predictive selection models from these two datasets, we aim to more accurately identify new varieties for wide-area testing, as well as rapidly screen progeny families in order to more efficiently utilize acreage at our research sites. Together, we expect this approach will accelerate the rate of genetic improvement for these long-lived perennial species.
The improved cultivars released through this program will enable agroforestry systems to realize their true potential, playing a significant role in helping to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration.
Bio: Scott coordinates Savanna Institute’s work on tree crop improvement, with a particular focus on building genetic repositories for multiple agroforestry species. A former organic vegetable farmer, Scott received his MSc degree in Plant Sciences from Wageningen University, and his PhD in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is also a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Julie Dawson at UW–Madison. Scott is passionate about perennial crop improvement that supports more sustainable agroforestry systems.
Explore More:
Savanna Institute Tree Crop Improvement: https://www.savannainstitute.org/tree-crop-improvement/
Upper Midwest Hazelnut Development Initiative: https://www.savannainstitute.org/tree-crop-improvement/