Page 153 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Broccoli crop improvement

environments and in organic conditions. Burger et al. (2008) found with maize

selection, that trialing advanced lines under conventional management after

determining superior lines selected in organic systems, could also enhance

conventional breeding as lines that tolerate stress in an organic management

system may carry this performance over to stress conditions that can also occur

under conventional systems.

We want to stress that our study included predominantly modern broccoli

cultivars selected for broad adaptability in conventional production systems,

which does not fully show the potential of selection in breeding populations

under organic management. Kirk et al. (2012) and Reid et al. (2011) both

reported that direct selection in organically managed ield conditions for

genotypes targeted for organic agriculture ofered advantages over indirect

selection in conventionally managed ield conditions for spring wheat because

they found that breeding populations selected in organic environments had

higher yields when grown organically, compared to conventionally selected

populations that did not perform comparatively well. We therefore recommend

that for further studies, early generation broccoli breeding lines and/or

populations be compared to attain a better prediction of genetic correlations

for organic, and to explore potential genetic changes that may occur when

broccoli breeding lines are bred in the target environment from inception.

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