Danya Lee Rumore

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Organic Seed Partnership Bell Pepper Variety
Trial
Danya Lee Rumore 2006 HHMI Summer
Research Mentors Jim Myers and Deborah Kean
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Organic Whats the big deal?

• Organic vs. Conventional Agriculture
• No synthetic pesticides, herbicides or
• fertilizers
• No genetically modified seeds (or other GMO
  inputs)
• Employment of long-term soil-building,
  conservation, manure management and crop rotation
  practices.
• Required buffering between organic land and
  non-organic land
• USDA National Organic Program (NOP) 2002
• Established regulations for organic labeling
• To be labeled organic, foods must be produced in
  accordance with organic standards and must be
  certified organic

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• Organic Food
• 17-20 growth in organic
• food sales in recent years
• World organic
• food sales expected to
• exceed 32 billion
• by 2009
• 2005 US organic food
• sales 13.8 billion or
• 2.5 of total US food
• sales
• Produce sales account
• for 39 of organic food
• sales

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The Project

• Background
• Part of an Organic Seed Partnership variety trial
• OSU is one of many OSP hubs conducting the trial
• Purpose
• Compare productivity of newly developed bell
  pepper varieties to standards in organic growing
  conditions
• 5 different breeding lines from Cornell
  University
• Two heirloom varieties (King of the North and
  Early Red Sweet)
• Two new varieties from seed companies (New Ace
  and Orion)
• Commercial standard (Cal Wonder)
• Determine whether a specific breeding effort is
  necessary for organic bell pepper production

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Personal Motivation

• Develop a better understanding of organic
  production systems
• Help further scientific understanding of organic
  and sustainable production
• Work within the sustainable agricultural
  community
• Chance to learn more about OSU organic
  agriculture research

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Experimental Design

• Replicated comparison of 10 bell pepper varieties
• 3 randomized plots
• Only 9 varieties in our trial due to shortage of
  viable plants in one Cornell breeding line
• Plants started in OSU organic greenhouse in
  mid-April
• Transplanted outside in mid-June
• Harvest dependent on first ripe date
• Data collected on various productivity measures

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Bell Pepper Madness!!
324 bell pepper plants
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Data Collection
Transplanting Mid-June Lewis-Brown
Horticulture Farm
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Mid-Season
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Maintenance
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September 21st
H A R V E S T
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How do you determine productivity?

• First ripe date
• Number of harvests
• Fruit weight and number
• Fruit size
• Flesh thickness
• Fruit appearance and
• marketability
• Occurrence of diseases
• Fruit distribution on plants
• Flavor

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Harvest 1
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Harvest 2
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Harvest 3
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Observations

• High occurrence of off-types in Cornell varieties
• Cal Wonder (commercial standard) and Orion have
  not yet produced ripe fruit
• Large variation among varieties and harvests
• Low insect damage
• High incidence of sunburn and lodging (plant
  flopping) in all varieties - due to organic
  conditions?

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Implications and Conclusions

• OSU data will be compiled with data from other
  OSP hubs
• Increased efforts to breed varieties specifically
  for organic conditions?
• Possible OSU involvement
• Development of varieties that maximize production
  in organic conditions

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Bloopers

• Because working on a vegetable farm isnt just
  fun and games (or just weeding and harvesting)

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Did I do that??!!
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Acknowledgements and thanks

• Dr. Kevin Ahern
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• OSU Horticulture Department
• Jim Meyers
• Deborah Kean
• and

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Our crew Nick, Charlie,
Annie, Peter, Peter, Paul
and Aaron
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THANK YOU
Danya Lee Rumore October 15th, 2006