The Rural Voice, 1981-04, Page 13legs as you walk along looking for
rogues."
By delegating the farm chores, Bob is
free to concentrate on his college job.
"I enjoy teaching, 1 enjoy the stu-
dents", he enthuses. "I also have
opportunities for research, opportunities
a farmer doesn't have, to sit on
committees dealing with licencing of new
varieties."
Mr. Forrest surrounds the process of
developing new varieties of breeder seed
with an aura of adventure. Plant
scientists examine an existing variety,
looking for deficiencies. They begin
searching for a seed that has one or more
of the needed characteristics. The
institution or private company would look
first in its own gene banks, where
thousands of seeds and their descriptions
are filed away. The search might broaden
to include the federal research unit in
Ottawa. Ridgetown or Kemptville within
the province, or reach out to another
country. For example, researchers are
now combing central and south America.
getting samples of beans grown for
generations by peasant farmers, buying
seeds from stalls in town markets.
bringing the beans back home to be
grown. examined. catalogued, crossbred
manually, grown again, re-examined and
recatalogued, for 30 or even 100
generations. From all that, hopefully. a
single plant that contains five or six of the
desired traits might emerge.
Wheat and barley are difficult to
cross-pollinate; the feat is accomplished
in the controlled atmosphere of an indoor
growth room, using scalpel and forceps
under a magnifying lens. Alfalfa is
even worse - each of the 300 or so flowers
on each plant must be hit individually
with a toothpick.
Developing new varieties is time-con-
suming and expensive. The cost of
research is escalating, and public plant -
breeding institutions need more money;
otherwise, they can't compete with the
private seed companies. Bob Forrest is a
forceful and convincing advocate of plant
breeders' rights legislation.
"It means companies or public breed-
ing institutions will have a method by
which they can collect royalties for the
varieties they have spent time, money
and research in creating.l don't think we
can argue too much with that; he states
emphatically.
In his opinion, the proposed federal
legislation would "give public plant -
breeding institutions a way, a means, of
user pay. Private companies don't have
as good varieties as public, but without
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the legislation they (Guelph et al) are
going to run out of money, and without
money to carry out their research
programs will not be able to turn out new
varieties, and private companies will
have the market to themselves. It's abso-
lutely essential to keep the marketplace
healthy. The alternative. which is politic-
ally unpopular, is increased taxes."
Bob Forrest is also convinced a farmer
is well advised to buy pedigreed seed,
guaranteed true to genetic type. A
farmer growing his own seed - oats for his
pigs, perhaps - who always fills his seed
drill from his grain bin will get more and
more throwbacks and weeds each year,
his yield will decrease annually, and the
crop becomes more and more susceptible
to disease.
"Consider the case of open pollinated
corn", Bob elaborates. "1 don't think
there's a line in existence anywhere that
will yield over 50 bushels per acre, yet
single cross and double cross hybrids in
this area have. been known to yield 150
bushels. The extra hundred bushels is all
profit."
Wfien a farmer buys pedigreed seed,
he receives the end result of a
far-reaching chain of dedicated people
whose operative word is "challenge".
ALFRED
KNECHTEL
Spray Painting Ltd.
SPECIALIZING IN FARIN1 BUILDINGS—
El ❑
(519) 669-2638
R.R. 2 WALLENSTEIN, ONTARIO
THE RURAL VOICE/APRIL 1981 PG 11