From KLB@gnv.ifas.ufl.eduWed Mar 15 14:05:40 1995
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 09:27:27 -0500 (EST)
From: "Ken Buhr / KLB@GNV.IFAS.UFL.EDU on Internet" <KLB@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu>
To: Sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu
Subject: Breeding food crops for environments subject to climate stress

     I volunteered to make a presentation to our weekly Plant
Breeding Journal Club, to plant breeders and graduate students in
Agronomy and the Horticultural Sciences (Fruit Crops and Vegetable
Crops).  Although the date for the informal presentation is almost
here, Thursday, 16 March, I have a long term interest and concerns
about the subject.  So, if you have input, I would be happy to hear
from you, even if March 16 is long gone.

     I will be exploring a somewhat controversial subject - breeding
food crops for environments likely to be increasingly subject to
irregular precipitation (or as one of my colleagues in Africa put
it, breeding food crops for a population increasingly subject to
aberrations in climatic patterns):
 
     Here is a bit of background - my farming systems work (I am a
plant breeder by training) in Africa (primarily in Mozambique) has
repeatedly shown that small farmers *want* earlier-maturing
varieties.  There are two reasons for their interest in early
varieties: the limited-input farmers (the term in Mozambique is
"family sector" farmers) have been experiencing shortened rainy
seasons with increasing regularity and severity (1992 was worst in
living memory), and, early-maturing varieties reduce the amount of
time in the period known as the "hunger months."
 
     I got to wondering if this experience in Africa may be
applicable to broader concerns, in years to come.  This would make
a good topic to discuss with fellow faculty and some of tomorrow's
breeders (the grad students).  Clearly, there are a couple
plausible ways for at-risk environments to originate or increase in
importance:
 
     1)   increasing pressure to use more marginal land for food
     crops - be it the result of increasing pressures of a growing
     human population, or simply, degradation of favorable crop
     land and natural resources, or,
 
     2)   mounting concerns that the increasing levels of
     atmospheric carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" may
     result in modifications to environments here-to-fore favorable
     to crop production (granted, some previously unfavorable may
     become favorable).
 
     I went to our campus library and searched AGRICOLA and
CAB databases, using keywords "plant breeding" and "climate
change."  I got two "hits," neither of which are in our library: 
 
     A)  Hillman, J.R.  1992.  Opportunities and problems in plant
     biotechnology - an overview.  Proc. of the Royal Society of
     Edinburgh.  Section B: Biological Sciences.  99:3-4, 173-182.
     17 refs. 
     
     B)  Organization for Economic Cooperation and Dev. 1992. 
     Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food.  219 pp.  Address:
     Scottish Crop Res. Ins. Invergowrie, Dundee DD2 5DA, UK. 
 
     I invite input and suggestions on the general theme, and if
someone could help me obtain the Hillman article (A above) I would
be grateful.
 
     Thanks in advance.
     Ken Buhr 
     Agronomy, U of Florida
     KLB@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu