18 CapitalPress.com
January 26, 2018
Idaho Innovators
Preserving the world’s small grains
In support of women in ag
Harold Bockelman
maintains unique
collection of
143,000 types
of grain
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
She Grows Idaho
Founded: October 2016
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
ABERDEEN, Idaho —
USDA has made ordering
seed from its vast National
Small Grains Collection sim-
ilar to shopping for merchan-
dise online.
Since 1898, the facili-
ty has preserved more than
143,000 types of wheat, bar-
ley, oats, rice, rye, triticale
and wild relatives originating
from throughout the world,
maintaining a pool of genet-
ics to help scientists tackle
some of the great challenges
facing agriculture.
Harold Bockelman, the
collection’s curator of more
than 30 years, explained crop
researchers may search his
online database for specific
numbered lines, or by de-
sired traits. The grain types,
called accessions, are paired
with descriptions and pho-
tographs. Map coordinates
accompany some of the land-
race accessions, which were
cultivated over thousands of
years, to show their place of
origin.
Shoppers fill a virtual cart
upon making their selections,
though Bockelman’s service
is free of charge.
“It looks more like an
Amazon site than it used to,”
Bockelman said.
In an average year, Bock-
elman and his staff mail more
than 50,000 envelopes, each
containing 5 grams of seed,
to roughly 800 domestic and
international crop research-
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Harold Bockelman, curator of the National Small Grains Collection in Aberdeen, Idaho, with variety
plots from the collection.
Harold Bockelman
Age: 68
Education: Undergraduate degree from Purdue University and a
Ph.D. in plant genetics from University of California-Davis
Hometown: Aberdeen, Idaho
Job: Supervisory agronomist with USDA and curator of its Nation-
al Small Grains Collection
Innovation: Maintaining USDA’s National Small Grains Collection
for more than 30 years and helping to make accessing its materi-
als more convenient
Frank Curtis, chief op-
erating officer at Limagrain
Cereal Seeds of Fort Collins,
Colo., said the collection has
provided his company with
invaluable genetic material.
Most recently, Curtis said
Limagrain propagated seed
from about 2,000 of the col-
lection’s barley lines, hoping
IDInnov18-4/108
ers and cereal breeders.
Breeders have found plen-
ty of hidden gems in the col-
lection, such as PI 178383, a
land-race wheat line originat-
ing in Eastern Turkey with
resistance to dwarf bunt,
stripe rust and other diseas-
es. It was used as a parent in
many modern crosses.
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to cross them with Europe-
an varieties to develop early
maturing, drought-resistant
malt lines adapted for North-
west conditions.
“It’s a wonderful initia-
tive,” Curtis said of the col-
lection. “Anything that has
been in the gene pool and has
potential use is preserved for
all time.”
For several years, variet-
ies from the collection have
also been sent to Kenya and
Ethiopia, where they’re be-
ing evaluated for resistance
to a destructive stem rust
found there, based on the
concerns that it could spread.
The collection includes
about 50,000 wheat, 33,000
barley, 20,000 oat, 19,000
rice, 2,000 rye and 2,000 trit-
icale accessions, plus wild
relatives. Each spring and
fall, Bockelman and his
staff plant a few thousand
of the collection’s acces-
sions to replenish seed and
evaluate them in research
fields at Aberdeen. Acces-
sions are planted in 10-foot
strips, separated by “guard
rows” of unrelated crops.
The staff uses a Japanese
rice binder to harvest them.
Seed at the facility is
stored at 42 degrees and
25 percent humidity and
remains viable for up to
25 years. The collection is
backed up by seed frozen in
liquid nitrogen in Fort Col-
lins, Colo., where it can be
stored for up to 100 years.
New accessions are added
periodically. Bockelman
now plans to add a wild
barley collection obtained
through an exchange by a
Minnesota scientist.
“We still look out for
possibilities to obtain other
collections from through-
out the world, but not so
much now because our col-
lection is fairly complete,”
Bockelman said.
This story was first pub-
lished Oct. 17, 2017.
TWIN FALLS, Idaho —
Laughter and lively banter
dominate at a recent gathering
of women passionate about ag-
riculture.
They are
members
of
She Grows Ida-
ho, a fledging
organization
focused on sup-
porting women
Karma
in agriculture
Metzler
and educating
Fitzgerald
consumers.
The group
is the brainchild of Alison
Hurwitch, a veterinarian with
Elanco, and Karma Metzler
Fitzgerald, a writer and agricul-
tural advocate. Its inspiration
was twofold — to provide a
social and supportive network
for young women in agricul-
ture and to educate consumers
about food and agriculture.
The approach is three-
pronged: to educate, empower
and enrich, Fitzgerald said.
There’s been an influx of
young women in agriculture to
the Magic Valley over recent
years and there was no orga-
nization to help them find out
about resources or connect to
other women in ag, she said.
“There is a void; there’s no
way for them to network,” she
said.
Agriculture can be a re-
ally lonely place for women,
whether they’re on the farm or
working in traditionally male
roles, she said.
Women’s struggles
Hurwitch said she knows
the struggles young profes-
sional women face. She came
to the Magic Valley as a single
mother in 2008, juggling ca-
reer, family and a little gender
bias. The first time she went to
a dairy to pull a calf, she was
met with “Where’s the vet?”
Women farm owners face
the same frustration when peo-
ple ask, “Where’s the owner?”
she said.
“We wanted get the group
together so women feel sup-
ported,” she said.
Women are taking up
non-traditional roles in agricul-
ture — a great opportunity that
comes with growing pains.
“We want them to be excit-
ed and happy about choosing a
path in ag,” she said.
For those college-bound
women, the group wants to en-
courage them to pursue the de-
gree they want — even if it has
been traditionally male-domi-
nated, she said.
“It’s a mentoring thing,”
Fitzgerald said.
Her daughter is majoring
in agricultural technology and
production management at
Washington State University
and belongs to the universi-
ty’s dairy club, whose quarters
were designed for young men.
The vast majority of club
members today are female,
all working on dairies, yet the
club’s quarters didn’t even have
a women’s bathroom until re-
cently, Fitzgerald said.
While women have always
Co-founders: Alison Hurwitch
and Karma Metzler Fitzgerald
Membership: 105 and
growing
Mission: Empowering women
involved in all aspects of food
production, from field to fork.
Email: info@shegrowsidaho.
com
Website: http://www.
shegrowsidaho.com/
Motto: “Lead by serving,
learn by giving and nurture
by feeding our families, our
communities and our world.”
had a strong role in agriculture,
they haven’t been recognized
or appreciated. With today’s
young women now working
more, “We want them to know
they have a support system,”
she said.
They’re bound to have frus-
trations, and She Grows Idaho
offers a safe place to air those
issues and find solutions. It’s a
forum for empowerment and
education where they can find
support, she said.
It’s also a means to connect
women in the industry and help
them be a voice in agriculture
and for agriculture, Hurwitch
said.
“There’s a lot of misinfor-
mation out there about food, la-
bels and what’s going on in ag-
riculture. We wanted to have an
opportunity to educate anyone
and everyone we can on what
things mean, such as GMO or
hormones,” she said.
The group is also meant to
further the education of women
in agriculture, from production
and marketing to how to give
farm tours and handle pub-
lic-relations issues, she said.
Varied backgrounds
The group spans the spec-
trum of backgrounds — from
Ph.D.-level researchers to
traditional farm wives, from
young women just entering
agriculture to those closer to
retirement and from staunch
conservatives to determined
liberals.
The constant is their female
perspective and their passion
for agriculture.
“Being able to hang out with
women who have the same ag-
ricultural passion” is what drew
Shayna Wilks to the group.
She’s part of a multi-gener-
ational dairy in Gooding Coun-
ty and said there are a lot of
men in dairy. She Grows Idaho
gives her the opportunity to be
with like-minded women and
provides resources as well.
“It’s reassuring to hang out
with people (women) from the
same walk of life,” said Kristi-
na Reitsma, the only female on
her multi-generational family
dairy. Katy Jo Fitzgerald, in her
first year of ag studies at Wash-
ington State University, joins
the group when she’s in town.
People think she can’t han-
dle ag work because she’s
female, and she enjoys being
with women who do “handle
it,” she said.
This story was first pub-
lished on March 25, 2017.
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