Resiliency has been a cornerstone of Dr. Andrew Riseman’s work for more than two decades. But while the Associate Professor of Applied Biology and Plant Breeding takes a lengthy view of the research topics he tackles at the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm (CSFS), many of the real world challenges in his field are arising more often and becoming more dramatic.
Monday, July 8, 2024 - 10:21

Inspired by the pioneering work of veteran US farmer and environmental campaigner Wendell Berry, Dr. Riseman believes the historic separation of plant and animal production systems has in fact created far more resiliency problems than solutions for agriculture.

“As a plant breeder, I work with long research horizons (e.g., 10-15 years to develop a new cultivar) while also trying to predict what the future weather will be,” says Dr. Riseman. “But we know that the environment is changing more quickly than anticipated and extreme weather events are occurring more frequently than ever. So, it’s critical to both effectively and efficiently develop resilient cultivars that can withstand any stressful condition they may encounter.”

Defining resiliency as “the ability of plants to maintain function despite adverse conditions,” Dr. Riseman’s research in recent years has investigated how plant genetics informs the design of production systems and how useful traits in these systems can be combined with superior germplasm to create beneficially optimized systems—an approach that places plant breeding at the heart of agricultural resiliency solutions.

But while optimizing the best traits of cash crop plants is a key focus for many researchers, Dr. Riseman notes that different plant breeders take different approaches to key issues such as drought or flooding. “My work has focused on creating genetically diverse cultivars that perform well across different environments/stressors, rather than having a single genotype cultivar that is bred for optimum conditions,” he says. “This solution means creating a single cultivar that is able to resist different types of stress.”

Dr. Riseman’s latest research aims to turn the spotlight on understanding and redesigning intensive multi-trophic production systems—envisaging a system that reunites plant and animal production.

“I want to work on a system that reintegrates plant and animal production,” he says. “And that means breeding cultivars that are specific for a strong and robust plant-animal system.” As ever, though, there are no timeline shortcuts to creating new solutions using plant breeding techniques and Dr. Riseman’s projects will continue to take a necessarily long-term approach. “There is no silver bullet answer to resiliency challenges, of course, but I continue to remain optimistic.”