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and one in The Netherlands). The changes of each variety were assessed
by planting all varieties together in the same environment and comparing
the original seed sample with the variety cultivated and selected on-farm
for two cycles. Figure 2 illustrates the procedure of the trials and Table 1
gives some information about the environments of the different trials. In
the rest of the paper, we have called a variety cultivated by a farmer in a
given environment over two years a “version” of this variety. The “origi-
nal version” is the original seed sample. For example, the variety 'Eté de
Rueil' was cultivated by two farmers (FD and MC). In our trial, we com-
pared three versions of this variety: the MC version (the variety cultivated
for two years by MC), the FD version (the variety cultivated for two years
by FD), and the original version (initial seed lot).
The varieties tested were European populations (open pollinated va-
rieties) of spinach which were historically registered in the European
variety catalogue but which have now entered the public domain. Seeds
came from national gene banks (CGN—The Netherlands—and GEVES—
France) and small-scale seed companies (La Semeuse and Germinance,
France). Twenty-one varieties were chosen to represent a diverse range of
traits that could be of interest for European conditions. All were indicated
to be spring varieties. The different varieties tested are presented in Table
2, with those chosen by the farmers for the experiment indicated.
12.2.1 TRIAL DESIGN AND OBSERVATIONS
The experiment was performed in three steps: (i) 2007, selection among
varieties: cultivation by all the farmers of all twenty-one varieties, with
farmers choosing at least one variety to be grown and selected on their
farms for the following years; (ii) 2007 and 2008, selection within variet-
ies: on-farm mass selection within the chosen variety(ies) and on-farm
multiplication; (iii) 2009: evaluation of all the varieties chosen and se-
lected by the farmers in a common trial (one location, Le Rheu, Brittany,
France). As a first step, the farmers chose the variety(ies) to experiment
during cultivation and non-suitable varieties were eliminated before flow-
ering. Each farmer chose among the varieties according to their ideotype
for fresh-market spinach (see Table 3).
