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Preserving Biodiversity and Diversity in Seed Suppliers

A recent post on Ottawa Hortiphilia addresses a very important trend we should all be aware of, the commercializing of heirloom varieties in seed catalogs.

Until recently most seed retailers were prohibited by clauses in their suppliers contracts from identifying open pollinated (OP) and heirloom varieties for what they were. In effect what this meant if a retailer wanted to sell heirloom seed, and identify them as such, they could only sell heirloom seeds and only purchase them from a very limited number of suppliers. This is still the case for most small seed companies, and it makes selling heirloom varieties almost impossible to do profitably.

It’s a very small victory that there are now a few companies selling both heirloom and non heirloom seeds, and identifying them as such. We will probably see more in the coming years.

It’s very easy for seed companies to mislead you into purchasing seeds that you think are suitable for seed saving, but really aren’t. For example giving them descriptions along the lines of ‘just like what your grandmother grew’, or giving them a name close to but not exactly the same as a similar heirloom variety. These days many seed companies put a broad statement on the front of their catalog about carrying more heritage varieties than ever before, don’t identify what any of them are, but give you the feeling like you can trust the seeds you buy from them.

Anytime you buy seeds from a company that does not sell exclusively heirloom varieties, you are taking a risk of buying something that is not suitable for seed saving. In any event, never purchase anything that is not clearly labelled as being suitable for seed saving or OP.

It is clear that more heirloom and OP varieties will start becoming available from larger seed companies. As this starts to happen, it’s important we do not lose our small seed companies. It’s important the meaning of heirloom, heritage or OP varieties does not get lost or that we find ourselves back in the position of only being able to buy seeds from the large seed companies. It’s very important we all think about buying seeds from people and small companies we trust and not faceless corporations with clever marketing departments and colorful catalogs.

We need more OP varieties

There is another side of the coin here.

There are a large number of OP and heritage varieties stored away in seed banks around the world. It takes a lot of time and money to get these varieties out of the seed banks, and into gardens and production on farms. There is much more work involved than just taking the seeds out of the seed banks and growing them, they have to be selectively bred first. For a long time now seed companies have been putting their efforts into developing hybrid varieties and ignoring open pollinated ones.

By showing a preference for OP varieties when purchasing fruit and vegetables, as well as encouraging seed companies to produce new and interesting OP varieties, we can provide incentive for large seed companies to invest in developing more OP varieties.

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Shipping Seeds to the US

I’m sorry, but I’ve decided to stop trading with or selling seeds to people in the US, at least for the time being.

The problem is as I mentioned in this post that the US has new permit rules for importing garden seeds.  Because I am not a US resident, I am not allowed to apply for this permit.  Perhaps at some point I can arrange for a US resident to apply for this permit, and could then trade my seeds via them.  For now, the seeds I am offering are not very unique and it doesn’t seem worth going through the all the trouble to send them to the US.  If you live in the US, and are interested in any of my seeds, please let me know and I will try to help you find a local source for them.

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Hybrid Vigor: Fact or Fiction?

As something of an extension on the previous post concerning inbreeding depression, there is an interesting article on page 7 of the latest issue of Seedling magazine on the GRAIN website. In this article is the suggestion that the much hyped hybrid vigor is really a complete myth.

Commercial hybrid varieties are always made from intensely inbred parent strains, because they need to be as genetically stable as possible. This means they display a very high degree of inbreeding depression, and are very poor performing as a crop plants. When the parent plants are crossed, the problem of inbreeding depression is solved, and the vigor is restored to what it should be. The so called hybrid vigor is usually determined by comparing the F1 hybrid to the parent strains, which is a completely unfair comparison.

This would seem to eliminate the only reason a for choosing hybrids over open pollinated (OP) varieties. Hybrids are very expensive to produce, and are frequently generously subsidized by governments so farmers can afford to buy them, in the logic they will increase food production. Seed companies of course prefer to sell hybrids, because farmers cannot save their own seeds.

Today the state of OP crop varieties is very poor, because these plants need to be regularly grown out and a lot of work is needed to select them for suitable traits. The seed companies have been concentrating on hybrid varieties and neglecting OP ones. Some seed savers have been working on keeping OP plants suitable for commercial use, but much more work is needed for this.

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Inbreeding Depression

I’ve touched on this briefly in the past, but I thought I would go into this a bit more, because it is really an important issue for people who save their own seeds.

There are three main kinds of plants: inbreeding, out breeding and plants that do both.

Inbreeding plants are by far the easiest to save seeds from, because they self pollinate and you don’t need to worry about cross pollination issues. These plants have also generally evolved to avoid inbreeding depression. Examples of plants that fall into this category are tomatoes, peas and grains.

Out breeding plants are a slightly different story. Out breeding plants cross pollinate, and you must consider this when saving seeds. Often the easiest way to prevent cross pollination is to grow only one type of a particular plant species. Examples of out breeding plants are corn and cabbage related plants. With out breeding plants, you also need to be careful to avoid inbreeding depression.

Inbreeding depression occurs when the gene pool becomes too small because too few plants of the same species were cross pollinated with one another. To avoid this problem, you must save seeds from a number of the same type of plant. Exactly what this number is varies from plant to plant, and indeed is the point of some disagreement between gardeners. In general if a plant is completely outbreeding, you must save seeds from more plants than a plant that is both in- and out-breeding. In some cases you have to save seeds from 100 or more plants, and in other cases a 4-5 is enough. If you’re not sure, it’s better to save seeds from too many plants than too few.

When your seeds experience inbreeding depression, they will lose their vigor and and yields will decrease. In addition, some previously dormant recessive genes may express themselves resulting in undesirable traits, possibly rendering your seeds unusable. These problems may not show up for several generations after the seeds were saved.

Normally the only solution for inbreeding depression is to either create a hybrid variety by cross pollinating with another type of plant from the same species, or to introduce some new pollination partners with seeds obtained from another source.

The opposite of inbreeding depression is usually referred to as hybrid vigor. This is often seen by plant breeders when they create a new variety of plant.

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Seeds

Seed Bags

Everyone has been posting pictures of their seed packets lately, so I thought I would post mine. In my case seed bags.

I met up with the Seed Ambassadors in Belgium last week, and traded seeds with them. They have been traveling around Europe and trading seeds with some very interesting people.

I have several varieties of peas from the Priekuli Plant Breeding Station in Lativa, a special variety of Marigold brought with them from Oregon, several varieties of beans from different places, Lithuanian beets, Belgian leeks and spelt originally from Belarus but selected in Lithuania for 14 years. On the right in the ziplock bag are some unusual squash seeds bred in a home garden.

My samples of these seeds are pretty small, but it’s the intention to share them when I have enough with anyone who is interested.

I also got some potato varieties, a plant and an interesting tuber. I will post about all of these later.