Phone: 737-5467 (office), 737-5464 (lab)
E-mail: mehlenbs@hort.oregonstate.edu
Office Hours: For short questions, see me after class or stop by my office. For longer questions, please make an appointment. I do not have formal office hours, but I make myself available when needed. Class meets four days each week, so you have many opportunities to ask for assistance. I help with DNA marker-assisted selection in the lab for several weeks each spring. Do not be afraid to enter the lab (4148 ALS) and look for me. If you wait outside my office you might be waiting a long time.
Prerequisite: CSS 430, GEN 311, or equivalent genetics course.
Content: This is an introductory course in plant breeding for undergraduate seniors and first year graduate students. The emphasis is on traditional methods of developing improved cultivars of self-pollinated, cross-pollinated, and asexually propagated crops and the genetic principles on which these methods are based. Examples are drawn from a wide range of crops, including cereal grains, forages, fruits, vegetables, and ornamentals. Special topics include germplasm preservation, disease resistance, and applications of biotechnology to plant improvement.
Lecture notes will be distributed in class at the beginning of each new topic. The reading assignment is given at the top of the lecture notes.
Grading: Cutoff points will be the standard 90%, 80%, 70%, and 60% for A, B, C, and D, respectively. Approximate weighing will be as follows:
Exam 1 20% Thursday, April 24 during lab
Exam 2 20% Thursday, May 15 during lab
Exam 3 22% as listed in Schedule of Classes
Term Project 20% due Thursday, last week of classes
Problem Sets 18% four take-home assignments
Copies of last
year's exams are on reserve in Valley library under Hort 450. You are welcome to obtain exams from previous
years from other sources. All exams are
cumulative but emphasize material covered since the previous exam.
The problem
sets require several hours to complete. They must be the student's own work. It is OK to help another student by
suggesting that they read a certain page in the text or class notes, but
copying answers and submitting the work as one's own will not be
tolerated.
There will be
a few extra questions on the problem sets and exams for graduate students (who
should be registered for 550).
Text (required): Sleper, D.A. and J.M. Poehlman 2006. Breeding field crops. 5th edition. Blackwell Publishing, Ames, IA. ($90.75 new last year in the OSU bookstore).
Thursday Discussion Period:
The double period on Thursday afternoon will be used to allow public and private plant breeders in Oregon to give presentations to the class about their programs. A list of dates and speakers will be distributed later.
Books on 2-Hour Reserve (filed under Hort 450):
Fehr, W.R. and H.H. Hadley (Eds.). 1980. Hybridization of crop plants. American Society of Agronomy, Madison. SB123 H9
Smartt, J. and N.W. Simmonds. 1995. Evolution of crop plants. 2nd ed. Wiley, New York. SB106 O74 E96
Books on 2-Day Reserve:
Bassett, M.J. (Ed.). 1986. Breeding vegetable crops. AVI, Westport. SB324.7 B74
Fehr, W.R. 1987. Principles of cultivar development. Macmillan, New York. Vols. 1 & 2. SB123 P725
Simmonds, N.W. and J. Smartt. 1999. Principles of crop improvement. 2nd ed. Blackwell Science, Oxford, UK. SB123 S53
