Organic farmers need crop cultivars that perform well under organic management and a resilient seed system to meet the challenges of climate change. This project took a decentralized, farmer-participatory approach to plant breeding, field trials, and cultivar development, including:
(1) Building collaborative plant breeding and trialing capacity among Upper Midwest farmers, plant-breeders, organic seed companies, and organic certifiers through an integrated community of practice (COP), advanced training, and an online toolkit.
(2) Expanding the functionality of SeedLinked, an online platform for sharing outcomes of multi-site breeding trials.
(3) Utilizing this network in farmer-participatory plant breeding to improve disease resistance and other traits in tomato and pepper.

The project developed an upper Midwest COP of ~100 seed producers, small seed companies, plant breeders, and non-profit staff. Several hundred farmers took part in variety trials and 120 engaged in collaborative tomato and pepper breeding. These farmers conducted field trials and returned seeds from the best lines to plant breeders for further selection and seed increase in winter greenhouse trials. The project has released three new tomato varieties.

The SeedLinked platform, utilized by this network, was substantially improved. New features were added to accommodate a wider range of field trial designs, facilitate communication and data sharing among participants, help farmers locate organic seeds, and provide tutorials to make the platform more user friendly.