Jim Myers

Jim Myers is recently retired after serving 29 years as the Baggett-Frazier Endowed Professor of Vegetable Breeding and Genetics in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. He has a long-time interest in sustainable agriculture and its influence on plant breeding. Before coming to Oregon in 1996, he spent 10 years at the University of Idaho Kimberly Research Station, where he released 13 dry bean varieties. At OSU, he has studied and bred several crops, including snap bean, edible podded pea, broccoli, tomato, pepper, winter, and summer squash. His main interest has been to improve vegetable and field crop varieties for disease resistance, human nutrition, and organic production systems. Internationally, he has been involved in bean improvement programs in Eastern and Southern Africa, where his bean seed weevil-resistant dry bean lines are currently being deployed. He was director of the Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collaborative (NOVIC), a 12 year federally funded multistate project to breed and trial vegetable varieties adapted to organic production systems. He has been involved in several other organic breeding projects, currently including the Tomato Organic Management and Improvement (TOMI) project. At OSU, he has released several vegetable varieties, including ‘Legend’ tomato with Dr. Jim Baggett, and five “Indigo” tomato cultivars. Other releases include ‘Cascadia’ broccoli, ‘OSU5630’ green bean, ‘Patron’ Peruano dry bean, and ‘Sweet Gem’ snap pea. His work with Indigo tomatoes has been disseminated around the world, and germplasm from his program has been used to create more than 50 Indigo type tomato varieties. His latest releases are ‘Mild Thing’ and ‘Notta Hotta’, mild habanero peppers and two popping bean varieties (‘Poporito’ and ‘Noche Nuña’). Tromboncino summer squash, snap peas and beans, and more tomatoes are next in the pipeline for release. His engagement with Organic Seed Alliance goes back to the early 2000s.