Course contents
“The World of Plant Breeding and Seeds”
Session 1 Socio-economic relevance.
Introduction, expectations, agenda
Importance of plant breeding, starting material, relevance seed sector, biotechnology
a) Importance of plants, importance of plant breeding
b) Challenges for plant breeding
c) Timeline: history of plant breeding
d) Economic relevance of the seed sector: the world, the Netherlands, West-Friesland
e) Biotechnology: discussion on the usefulness and necessity of GMOs
Session 2 Biodiversity and plant breeding.
Biodiversity and plant breeding.
a) Biodiversity, centers of origin; domestication of crops
b) Species and varieties, landraces and regional varieties
c) Importance of genetic diversity for breeding, plant collection
d) Conservation of biodiversity; in situ, in gene banks
e) International Laws and Regulations
f) Starting material
g) Product development process
h) Market requirements and product profiles: breeding objectives
Session 3 Plant breeding.
Plant breeding: genetics, basic concepts and process
a) Basic genetics (Simulation of flower color inheritance)
b) Flower biology and pollination
c) Male sterility
d) Making crosses in practice
e) Inbreeding, parent lines
f) F1 hybrid
g) Assessment of new potential varieties, market introduction.
Session 4 Plant breeding.
Plant breeding: resistance breeding, (bio)technology and phenotyping.
a) Tissue culture and cell biology
b) Mutation breeding
c) Breeding for resistance
d) Biotechnology: molecular markers, sequencing, gene editing
e) Phenotyping, resilience
Session 5 Producing, cleaning and seed treatment.
1 Seed production/multiplication
a) Planning of seed production
b) Open pollinated varieties versus F1 hybrids
c) Pollination methods and seed setting
d) Harvesting, drying and storage
2 Seed Cleaning (Processing) and seed enhancement
a) Seed reception
b) Sorting
c) Storage
d) Priming
e) Film coating
f) Pelleting
g) Desinfection
Session 6. Seed quality and seed enhancement.
1 Seed quality
a) Sampling, germination, seed health, genetic purity
b) Preventionl
2 Legislation and regulations
a) Registration, quality control, import-export, plant variety protection (PVP)
b) Prevention
3 Packaging and distribution of seeds
4 Biological seeds
5 Young plant production
Evaluation of the course