WI-OSC Purple Carrot

Daucus carota Origin: Wisconsin Improvement status: Cultivar Composite Seeds per packet: ~200 Germination tested 10/2024: 52% Life cycle: Biennial Our friend Dr. Claire Luby — plant breeder, organizer, and Executive Director of the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) — recently completed her PhD at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Her thesis assessed genetic variability and "freedom to operate" among U.S. carrot cultivars. In short, Claire attempted to find out whether or not there are enough carrot cultivars without intellectual property restrictions attached to them to enable open-source plant breeders to develop the resilient, delicious, nutritious carrots of the future. As part of her studies, in collaboration with UW-Madison's Dr. Irwin Goldman, one of the founders of OSSI, Claire developed eight intellectual-property-free populations of carrot germplasm and released them as OSSI-pledged varieties. Our collaborators Clint Freund and Kass McKinnon were given some of Claire'