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What is the appropriate way to acknowledge the use of a breeders germplasm?
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That is a good question. I had struggled with that for years. I would sign MTA's (Material Transfer Agreements) to obtain germplasm from other breeders...usually University base breeders and the agreement was that I would not sell that seed to another party. It had been generally accepted that once that controlled variety was used in breeding to create yet another variety...no compensation was required back to the University. The push for PVP or patents have dried up many accessions from ever being available. North Carolina, Florida, and Oregon have been good about making germplasm obtainable. Large seed companies hardly ever allow access to their inbreds....It generally was up to the individual to to take the hybrids and breed from them.
Small private breeders as myself have had little protection from others using inbreds for breeding purposes. If those that use it want to acknowledge the history...that is about the best you can expect. I have gradually been swayed to make my varieties Open Source.
I have way too many seeds to bother about putting them is special storage. I have boxes and boxes of seed in my condo, garage, storage units...and try to grow out old seed collections from time to time to renew the seed stock for better germination. Yes, I number the seeds along with sow dates so that I can trace back year after year and format a limited amount of info for descriptions of the fruit, etc.
As far as selling special collections of my seeds, I try to introduce a few each year. The ones I described in the earlier post have not been released....but since I wrote about them...I should sow some seed just to make sure I have some new seed in case I promote them next year. New names need to be attached because folks don't follow pedigree info like I do.
I am thinking about putting together a link to my website that allows folks to view the ancestry of many of my tomatoes. There is more likelihood that my ancestry page for potatoes would be launched first, since that is where my energy is focused most often. I have the potato pedigree database for my potato breeding already established.
Major contributing ancestors (MCAs) can be found in many popular breeds of vegetables. I have some like BURGESS CRACKPROOF that occurs many times in the extended genetic history. In potatoes...Busola occurs 94 times just on one side of the ancestry of my Nordic October....by the time it gets down to Azule Rose...it appears 368 times in the ancestry chart.