Training & teaching materials

From 13 to 17 July 2026, the LiveSeeding project held its Summer School at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), bringing together breeders, researchers, students, advisors and farmers for a week dedicated to organic plant breeding. The event was organised by Prof. Adrián Rodríguez Burruezo (UPV), Dr. Véronique Chable (INRAE), Dr. Francesca Gori (Rete Semi Rurali), Dr. Mariateresa Lazzaro (FiBL) and Matteo Petitti (ECO-PB).

You can find all the presentations from the Summer School here.

• Category: Seed production
• Institution: ECO-PB, UPV, INRAE, RSR, FiBL
• Location: Valencia, Spain
• Relation: LiveSeeding
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-07-13 to 2026-07-17
• Language: English

This training manual is designed for national authorities and seed experts across the EU, with the goal of strengthening their capacities and promoting transparency, knowledge exchange, and harmonised implementation of the EU organic regulation.

The training of trainers materials are organised into four modules:

• Module 19: Implementing a road map towards 100% organic seed use by 2036
• Module 20: Offering organic seed in seeds4organic (former the EU Router database)
• Module 21: Using seeds4organic (former EU Router database) to increase organic seed supply in National databases
• Module 22: Regulatory issues related to organic seed and breeding

• Category: Seed production
• Institution: IFOAM OE, FiBL DE, ECLLD
• Author: Ilsa Phillips (IFOAM OE), Caroline Formont (IFOAM OE), Kaja Gutzen (FiBL DE), Gabriele Maneo (EC-LLD), Mariano Iossa (FiBL Europe), Stephanie Mothes (ITAB), Francesca Gori (RSR), Freya Schäfer (FiBL DE)
• Relation: LiveSeeding
• Year: 2026
• Language: English

The LiveSeeding project offers a Training in Organic Seed and Breeding Entrepreneurship, organized in 5 Modules, delivered through European Webinars, National Trainings, and the Entrepreneurship Focal Point. The training pathway is led by RMAe (María Carrascosa), with the common training outline and methodology developed within the project’s Training Task Force (T7.2) by ITAB (FRA) (Stephanie Mothes), with the support of FiBL Europe (Mariano Iossa) and RSR (Francesca Gori).

• Module 23: Understanding the European context for organic seed and plant breeding entrepreneurship
• Module 24: Stakeholder engagement
• Module 25: Building and positioning organic seed and breeding enterprises
• Module 26: Business models and plans development
• Module 27: Funding opportunities for entrepreneurs in the organic seeds and breeding sector

• Category: Plant breeding, Seed production
• Institution: RcxAE & IPS
• Author: Carrascosa, Maria; Schäfer, Freya; Zintl, Maria; Maričić, Dora; Gori, Francesca; Koutis, Kostas; Špicnagel, Ana-Marija; Rossmanith, Gebhard; Lazzaro, Mariateresa; Holzherr, Philipp Martinez, Pilar; Colmenares, Ricardo; Olaziregi Alberdi, Irati; Nicolini, Edoardo; Montávez, Isabel; Pons, Juan Andrés
• Relation: LiveSeeding
• Year: 2026
• Language: English

This training module aims to address aspects of Local Food Policies and cultivated biodiversity. 

The module was delivered as a self-paced course during the 14th European Forum "Let's Liberate Diversity!" (Luxembourg, 4–6 September 2025) and was led by Maria Carrascosa (RMAE) and Francesca Gori (RSR). The module provides participants with practical examples of how to organise co-creation workshops aimed at co-desgin and co-development local actions and strategies that support cultivated biodiversity. The training material includes a presentation outlining workshop guidelines for engaging policymakers, municipalities, citizens, and other local stakeholders in the co-design of Local Food Policies (LFPs) and initiatives supporting cultivated biodiversity.

This material complements the “Manual on the Integration of Cultivated Biodiversity in Local Organic and Agroecology-oriented Food Policies”.

• Category: Seed production, Plant breeding
• Institution: INRAE, RSR
• Author: María Carrascosa, Francesca Gori, Cyrille Pacteau, Judit Fehér
• Relation: LiveSeeding
• Year: 2026
• Language: English

Organic seed production is a developing industry and viable economic opportunity for organic growers. To help growers manage the uncertainties and risks inherent to seed production, and to help growers earn more profit, Organic Seed Alliance developed a toolkit that offers support in the form of budgeting spreadsheets, inventory management, foundation and stock seed planning, instructional webinars, and more. These tools were created specifically for organic seed production. 

• Category: Seed production
• Institution: Organic Seed Alliance
• Year: 2026
• Language: English

This handbook draws on 18 pilot organic cultivar evaluation initiatives exploring more cost-effective, adaptive and participatory approaches. It highlights how cultivar evaluation can generate value beyond experimental results by strengthening relationships, supporting learning and fostering collaboration.

Rather than promoting a single methodology, the handbook provides a framework for understanding the organisational, institutional and contextual factors shaping cultivar evaluation. It emphasises the importance of clear objectives, coherent and adaptive approaches, and continuous reflection and improvement. It is intended to support network coordinators, trial managers and others seeking to strengthen their evaluation systems.

• Category: Plant breeding
• Institution: ITAB
• Author: Costanzo, Ambrogio; Rey, Frédéric
• Relation: LiveSeeding
• Year: 2026
• Language: English, German, French

This webinar, organised within the Horizon Europe project InnOBreed, explored participatory approaches to organic fruit breeding, with a focus on developing more robust apple and pear cultivars adapted to low-input and climate-resilient farming systems. 

Marc Lateur (CRA-W) shared key experiences from the Nova Fruits initiative, a collaborative breeding model involving researchers and organic growers in the selection and evaluation of new cultivars. The session addressed topics such as robustness, disease tolerance, participatory decision-making, genetic diversity, and the future of organic orchards under climate change pressures. 

The discussion also highlighted practical challenges and opportunities linked to on-farm evaluation, digital tools, economic sustainability, and collaborative breeding networks across Europe.

• Category: Plant breeding
• Relation: InnOBreed Webinar
• Year: 2026
• Crop group: Fruits
• Language: English

This training manual provides practical tools and methods for assessing the sensory quality of food products in plant breeding, variety trials, product development and consumer research.

Designed for breeders, producers, researchers and product developers, it combines scientific principles with practical guidance for reliable sensory evaluation. Thematic sheets cover sensory analysis, test protocols, product preparation and software tools, supported by a comprehensive glossary.

• Category: Plant breeding
• Institution: ITAB
• Author: Solenne Jourdren and Frédéric Rey (ITAB)
• Relation: LiveSeeding
• Year: 2026
• Language: English, German, French, Greek, Hungarian

The use of organic seeds is one of the pillars of organic agriculture. This requirement has been embedded in EU organic legislation. Yet, the supply of organic seed in Europe is still insufficient in terms of quantity, quality and diversity, and many actors still rely on derogations for the use of untreated conventional seed.

Work Package 3 of LiveSeeding addresses this challenge by identifying key skills for the production of high-quality organic seed and compiling an extensive set of training materials on organic seed production, based on a training needs assessment.

The LiveSeeding training materials provide key concepts, practices, strategies and tools for organic seed production and seed health, from general principles to highly specific topics. They are structured as eight thematic modules (Modules 11–18) and offered as online, self-paced e-learning resources under an open licence, so that they can be broadly used and adapted.

• Module 11: General introduction to organic seed quality & health
• Module 12: Seed maturity and harvest
• Module 13: Seed drying and storage
• Module 14: Seed microbiota
• Module 15: Hot water treatments for seed health
• Module 16: OHM: General introduction, seed production and traceability
• Module 17: Tracking OHM: a digital tool for the notification, traceability of OHM seed
• Module 18: Growing and propagating bunt resistant wheat varieties

The entire module, with detailed guidance, link to the auto-corrected online quiz and additional references can be taken on the following website: https://itab.bio/en/elearningseedproduction/ModulesList

• Category: Seed production
• Institution: ITAB, DFH, WUR, FIBL, BSAG, ÖMKi, AEDIT
• Author: Stephanie Klaedtke (ITAB), Stéphanie Mothes (ITAB), Maike Bender (Dottenfelderhof), Valentin Gfeller (FiBL-CH), Diego Guidotti (Aedit SRL), Steven Groot (WUR & International Seed Academy), Kis Gyöngyi Györéné (ÖMKi), Jan Kodde (WUR), Mária Megyeri (OMKI), Monika Messmer (FiBL-CH), Baćanović-Šišić (Bingenheimer Saatgut AG), Gaspard de Tournemire (ITAB), Carl Vollenweider (Dottenfelderhof), Mariano Iossa (FIBL-Europe)
• Relation: LiveSeeding
• Year: 2025
• Crop group: Arable Crops, Legumes, Vegetables, Cereals
• Language: English

• Module 1: Plant Genetic Resources (PGRs): collection, conservation and exchange to support the increase of agrobiodiversity in farming systems
• Module 2: Phenomics: approaches and tools for genetic resources and breeding material characterization
• Module 3: Breeding methods fundamentals 
• Module 4: Development and application of molecular methods in organic breeding
• Module 5: Organic heterogeneous material (OHM) design and development

These materials have initially been generated as online courses by the LiveSeeding project, taught in five sessions between the months of January and March 2025, and include i) the PowerPoint presentations prepared by the lecturers (covering concepts, practical examples, demonstrations, tutorials, additional materials suggested to work on in the sessions themselves, questionnaires and homework), ii) the recordings of these sessions; iii) other support learning materials & iv) the training outline for each Module that can be used by trainers that want to deliver lectures based on LiveSeeding materials.

• Category: Plant breeding
• Institution: UPV, IPC, FiBL CH, RSR
• Author: Rodriguez Burruezo, Adrian; Fita, Ana; Solbes, Eva; Meglič, Vladimir; Koutis, Kostas; Bocci, Riccardo; Maneo, Gabriele; de Oliveira, Yannick; Goldringer, Isabelle; Mendes Moreira, Pedro; Jourden, Solenne; Albero, Neus Ortega; Pipan, Barbara; Chable, Véronique; Schneider, Michael; Lazzaro, Mariateresa
• Location: Online
• Relation: LiveSeeding
• Year: 2025
• Language: English