Phenotypic evolution of different spinach varieties grown and selected under organic conditions

Summary

Population varieties are still very used in developing countries and they are gaining interest in developed countries, especially for organic farmers (Wood and Lenné 1997). Indeed, organic agriculture needs flexible varieties to buffer the variability of cultivation conditions, to enhance self regulation principles of organic farming systems (Lammerts van Bueren, 2002) and also to adapt to the requirements of each farmer (specific markets for example). More and more farmers also look for such varieties in order to reach seed autonomy and those wishes can be answered thanks to participatory plant breeding. In this experiment (in the framework of the European project Farm Seed Opportunities), we will investigate capacities of evolution of some spinach varieties on phenotypical traits of interest for farmers and easy to measure. It is all the more interesting as there are mostly references for molecular evolution of spinach, which is not of direct relevance to farmers.