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The 'breeder's eye '- a sociological study on the knowledge in organic plant breeding
Project
Project code: 04OE001
Contract period: 01.10.2004
- 30.09.2006
Budget: 71,931 Euro
Purpose of research: Inventory & Assessment
The initial issue was the question as to what significance knowledge gained through experience has within the frame of professional plant breeding and how that should be understood within the context of breeding practice. In order to answer the question, five cereal breeders were interviewed, and the breeding practice were observed in one breeding garden during one vegetation period using a participatory observation method. The diverse situations in which knowledge is derived were recorded, five categories of knowledge developed and in a decision matrix reintegrated. The linking element between the categories is the interlinked structure of the chronicles that can be described in their complexity as knowledge gained through experience. It was possible on the basis of the decision matrix to distinguish the diverse decision-making situations – selection in an early versus late filial generation and cross-breeding planning – and make their significance comprehensible. Within this context, it was possible to make a distinction between three categories of knowledge – vegetational consciousness, generational consciousness and consciousness in hereditary flow. With the help of these three categories, it is possible to understand the various levels of breeding behaviour and how the breeders learn and develop their breeding practices. Competent breeding decision making integrates all of the categories of knowledge and all the levels of consciousness and forms, through their entirety, the 'breeder’s eye'. The actual decision is preceded by a multi-dimensioned deliberation process that is described as recognizing the invariants. Knowledge gained through experience is depicted as chronicles, integrating knowledge consisting of ramified anecdotes, which comprise both the established canons of knowledge as well as the subjective forms of knowledge from an individual perspective – in this case from the breeder’s perspective. The characteristics of knowledge gained from experience that is demonstrated here on the basis of plant breeding have extensive theoretical and practical consequences for teaching and research. Consequently, the courses at the universities should place the collection of experience as guided learning by doing at the core of their teaching efforts in order to make a subject-oriented development from anecdotes possible that integrates all of the categories of knowledge. Furthermore, the recognition of invariants, which was given an important role here within the context of decision-making, can be characterized with respect to research methodology as a basis for alternative research methods. The possibilities were illustrated on the basis of goetheanism and the phenomenology of nature.
Section overview
Subjects
- Plant Breeding
Framework programme
Federal Organic Farming Scheme and other forms of sustainable agriculture (BÖLN)
