Open and Distance Learning for Plant Breeding

Plant breeding integrates several disciplines of the biology and the applied mathematics. The recent evolution of the molecular biology, the appearance of new disciplines and the quantities of data to be managed renew needs in training in plant breeding. E-learning will facilitate the access to this knowledge to all users. From our cumulated experience in training young breeders in Montpellier-Supagro, AGROCAMPUS OUEST and AgroParisTech), it comes that there is a need for an e-learning plat-form referencing and offering resources to acquire or revise basic concepts and knowledge in plant science, genetics and statistics. Some resources already exist on the web (for example the Integrat-ed Breeding Platform of the Generation challenge program) but most of them are in English and an endeavor has still to be done to build an offer in French. The three teaching teams will use the opportunity of the Agropolis Fondation funding to start a national endeavor in plant breeding education. In this starter project, they will federate their skills and potentials, with the help of the scientists of our research units (AGAP, BGPI) to launch an exploratory project to elaborate the framework of a e-learning platform, analyse the availability of existing resources and elaborate and test the very first resources.