Tom Michaels studies classical plant breeding and genetics as it applies to food crops. His primary focus is on dry edible bean improvement. His current work targets development of new dry bean cultivars for organic production systems and those growing for local markets such as CSA and food co-ops. Recently he has selected within heirloom bean populations for lines well adapted to upper Midwest US environments. He also directs project improving sweet sorghum (for syrup production), lettuce (for hydroponic production) and industrial hemp.
Dry edible bean is a major protein source in diets around the world and is especially important in food-insecure nations. It is also a crop that, in food-secure nations, is stuck in a culinary rut of canned beans in tomato sauce. Tom is eager to pursue questions about bean protein that will benefit the food-insecure through increased protein quantity and quality, and food-secure through the development of bean protein as an ingredient in exciting and nutritious new foods.
Researcher Spotlight - March 26, 2020
How did you get to where you are now (academic and career background)?
My first exposure to plant proteins was when I started cooking for myself in college and I came across Frances Moore Lappé’s, book Diet for a Small Planet. Her descriptions of foods in terms of their essential amino acid contents was eye-opening and a window into vegetarian eating that still has an impact on me today. As far as working with plant proteins, the most pivotal step in my career was accepting my first faculty position at the University of Guelph in Ontario Canada where my research responsibilities focused on genetics and breeding of dry edible beans. Our team was very productive in releasing new dry bean cultivars to Ontario’s bean growers. Ironically seed protein content and quality, as selection criteria, were only important in so far as we maintained a standard cooking quality so there were no surprises during the canning process or on consumers’ plates.
Where do you see plant proteins research going over the next decade?
I would like to see new plant proteins become a driver of increased crop diversity in Minnesota. I am eager to know whether industrial hemp seed protein and dry bean seed protein can replace or improve upon the functional characteristics of protein concentrates currently used in processed food formulations. If so, then the increased demand for these raw products could result in new markets for growers and contribute to increased crop diversity on the farm. The benefits of this diversity would be both economic and ecological.
How would you like to contribute to the body of plant proteins research?
First, and this is what we are working on now, I’d like to know if there is genetic diversity within dry bean and industrial hemp genomes for protein functionality. If the answer is yes, and I anticipate that it is, then I’d like to contribute by developing hemp and bean breeding lines offering a range of different seed protein functionalities that food scientists can work with to develop improved foods.
What led you to do research with hemp?
Hemp is not a simple crop to breed in a way that results in rapid gain from selection. You can’t easily use conventional plant breeding tricks like self-pollination and hybridization because of the challenges posed by its dioecious sex expression. That makes it a really fun challenge. Also, we in Minnesota have a very large in situ industrial hemp gene bank that we colloquially call “ditch weed” growing in disturbed soils across the state. These naturalized plants are remnants of fiber hemp crops last grown in the 1940s. The naturalized populations have persisted for at least 80 generations and are well adapted to Minnesota climate as well as our abiotic and biotic stresses. That germplasm is extremely valuable because the US hemp germplasm collection was thrown out during Cannabis prohibition. I’m convinced that Minnesota ditch weed holds genes we will find very useful when breeding industrial hemp for this region. So between the challenge it poses, and the potential it holds, I’m hooked.
