OSSI Grant program, Official Q&A.

[Carol Deppe]

I'll answer questions here on behalf of the OSSI Board of Directors, of which I am chair.

Question 1: Would it be legit to write a proposal for a situation in which the only thing needed is seed increase?
Answer: Yes. Many varieties get stuck at that point because it sometimes takes more or different land or labor to do the seed increase prior to effective release of a variety than it took to do the breeding. So we explicitly wrote our grant material to include projects in which the breeding has been done but the variety is unreleased because of inability to do or finance the seed increase.

Question 2: I might be interested in submitting an application for a tomato project. Would my application be discriminated against because OSSI already has more than 200 OSSI-Pledged tomato varieties?
Answer: We discussed this issue in the board. First approximate answer. No. We don't plan to discriminate against tomato projects just because we already have lots of OSSI tomato varieties. After all, we have so many OSSIites breeding tomatoes because they are important and everyone loves them. However, realistically speaking, we would be unlikely to award more than one or two of the five available grants for tomatoes. And there are likely to be more proposals for tomato projects than for most other crops. So competition might be greater for tomato projects than for projects involving many other crops.

[William Schlegel]

Could a breeder submit multiple proposal ideas and then you would pick one if it got into the top five?

Like in my case I could probably come up with one to continue work with favas, and two for tomatoes- one for finishing a couple varieties on organic farms and another for doing some marker assisted selection. Might have more ideas before September.

[Carol Deppe]

Very interesting idea, William. I will consult with the other members of OSSI's Plant Breeding Committee and get right back to you. (The Plant Breeding Committee is responsible for running grant program on behalf of OSSI board, reading and evaluating applications, etc.)

[Carol Deppe]

We on the OSSI Plant Breeding Committee like the idea of allowing multiple proposals from each applicant.

Accordingly, the new policy is: Each applicant may submit up to three independent proposals. We will spread the new policy around so all applicants have it.

[Carol Deppe]

Question 3. I have several different plant breeding projects going. Can I submit multiple independent proposals?
Interesting idea. After a quick consultation with the rest of the OSSI Plant Breeding Committee we decided that each applicant may submit up to three independent proposals.

Question 4. Does Guam or other USA territories qualify me with respect to residence for this grant?
Yes. The restriction of the grants to USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is not based on geology, ecology, or language barriers. It's legal. These countries do not have national lists or phytosanitary laws that make it impossible for independent breeders or seed companies to sell new varieties without paying the government more than independent plant breeders can usually afford.

Question 5. I spent many years as a plant breeder for a major seed company (not an OSSI partner seed company). Now I am doing plant breeding on my own. Do I qualify as an independent plant breeder for purpose of this grant?
Yes.

Question 6. If you propose hiring a company to do marker assisted selection (MAS) or gene identification in finished varieties you should include the name of the company you plan to use, whether the company will provide markers, and if not who will. You need to know these things before you can evaluate whether what you are proposing is possible. So do we.

Question 7. If you are proposing a project that involves seed increase subcontracted by you to be done by someone else, you should should make arrangements contingent upon your getting the grant and include that information in the grant. (OSSI does not make seed multiplication arrangements for you.)

[Carol Deppe]

Question 8. I would like to propose a project using marker assisted selection, which I have not done before. Do I need to specify the company I plan to use and other details, or can I figure it out after I get the grant, if I do?
Answer: If you propose hiring a company to do marker assisted selection (MAS) or gene identification in finished varieties you should include in your proposal the name of the company you plan to use, whether the company will provide markers, and if not who will. You need to know these things before you can evaluate whether what you are proposing is possible for you to do at all. And we will need that information when evaluating whether we think you can do what you propose.

[Tyler96]

Hello Carol, serendipitous story to finding out about the OSSI grant. I'm a recent big fan of yours -- i started reading your books because you were recommended in the book "The Lost Art of Potato Breeding" a 2013 book by Rebsie Fairholm. I scoured the internet to find your Goldini seeds and just yesterday came across a youtube video of a podcast where you speak about the grant.

In saying all of this, i heard you say you respond to questions on the forums and I was wondering if the OSSI grant applies to potatoes? There are two potatoes listed on OSSI but both are no longer available because Cultivariable is the only site selling the tubers and they no longer sell tubers because their fields have been infected with powdery scab. I have been growing some seeds from Bill at Cultivariable a few crosses in and i have seeds from my berries this year that i have already decided they will most likely be a named variety even before i found out about the grant. It made me wonder.

Thanks for fielding questions for the grant and thank you for your work in the field and your writings. Youre inspiring generations 30 years later.

[Carol Deppe]

Yes, of course potatoes are eligible for the grants.

Note that the application deadline is September 15.

The links to the request for proposals and application are on the home page of the OSSI website. Note that any applicant may submit up to three independent proposals. On the home page you will also be able to get on the mailing list for OSSI Updates, where we first announced the grant program.

Thanks for your kind words about my writings.  I'm happy to answer questions about the grants on the forum. William Schlegel was the one who asked whether an applicant could submit multiple proposals on different projects. We hadn't thought of that. So I consulted the rest of the OSSI Plant Breeding Committee and within 24 hours we had a new policy that any applicant could submit up to three proposals.

What fun!

[sama_mansouri]

Hi there! I am a grower based in California and I primarily focus on growing crops from back home (Iran and the surrounding region) with the purpose of making seeds from that region available to my community in the US. I have recently gotten a whole collection of seeds from the NPGS from the region I work on, and I was planning on doing trials and potential seed increase on many varieties that are new to me next year, with the intention of evaluating them for cultural markers (how relevant that crop is to my community; whether folks recognize it, have food memories of it, etc.). I saw in the guidelines that "Projects where all that is needed is seed increase and/or variety characterization before release are welcomed," and I'm wondering if this project is relevant to that guideline. Within a few years, my goal is to be offering some varieties from these trials through a few small seed companies, but I was wondering if my project qualifies since I am not explicitly crossing anything? Could my three proposals for this grant be three different crop categories that I am planning on doing trials with next year (ie. beans, eggplant, and okra)?

Thanks!

[Carol Deppe]

Projects that are just variety trials and seed increase with no plant breeding would not qualify for an OSSI grant. The OSSI grants are for plant breeders.

If a plant breeder has bred a new variety and needs to do seed increase in order to be able to be able to make the variety they bred available to the public, that seed increase would qualify for our grant program.

[sama_mansouri]

Thank you so much for the information! I will adjust and propose a different project that I had in mind.