Developing new varieties of open pollination corn seeds for organic human consumption
Organic seeds project blueprint
The DORSE Project : Development of organic seeds
The production of organic corn in Quebec all depends upon the import of seeds from other countries, most of which have been created under conventional farming conditions, and thus not adapted to the following elements: the organic growing procedures, the various pedoclimatic regions in Quebec and their tolerance to persistent weeds. Consequently, those seeds often contain an important GMO contamination rate.
In fact and for the past five years, the PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) tests conducted on corn seeds show great signs of GMO contamination in both conventional non-GMO and chemical-free cultures as well as the ones which have an organic label.
The targets
Since 2016, the Coop has been collaborating on an organic corn seeds project with both Lana Reid, Ph.D. from Agriculture Canada, USC Canada and the MAPAQ to reach the following targets:
Developing pure lines and hybridations of corn seeds for organic animal feeding purposes
Comparing the sturdiness and the stress tolerance of the selected corn varieties according to different methods, e.g. grown by farmers vs phytogeneticians + conventional vs organic procedures
Coaching and teaching producers and agronomists with specific models of participatory improvement
This project has been made possible with the MAPAQ financial support of the «Innovbio» program, with the USC Foundation and with the BAUTA family initiative.