Seed Snobs

Alan Bishop on Bishop’s Homegrown blog made a great post recently, and introduced the idea of ‘seed snobs’.  I like that term, and I want to talk about it a little bit here.  It has a lot to do with the Blogger’s Seed Network and heirloom gardening in general.

As bloggers I think we are all seed snobs in our own way.  For example me who can’t talk about anything but heirloom and OP seeds.  Some people are very committed to national varieties, in Europe this is in part thanks to seed laws that make many national varieties illegal, providing a point for us to focus our energy on.  Other people only want to source seeds locally, perhaps because they don’t believe in buying and transporting things long distance, or hope to get varieties better suited to the local climate.  Others want to support local businesses by buying seeds from them.  Perhaps we are all a little afraid of the bio-technology in the US, and would avoid seeds from there at all costs, in case they might be contaminated.  Perhaps other people are on the other side of the spectrum, only growing commercial seeds because they don’t want to grow anything weird.

I have a lot of respect for everyone who draws the line somewhere on what seeds they grow, and while I might not agree with them all, I do see there is a line of logic behind all of these decisions.  I think most of you reading this blog by now also accept where I draw the line.

Speaking to the Masses

I think one of the reasons we all have these lines we draw when it comes to the kinds of seeds we plant, is we are all kind of ordinary people, most of us without PhDs, just trying to get on with things in our garden.  We need to think in relatively simple ways.  As most of you who read this blog know, I try very hard to both provide useful information, but also present things in a way that everyone can understand.

This means I sometimes have to speak in cliches like ‘You should only grow OP seeds’.

The subject of heirloom gardening goes much deeper than that, but I am not an academic or scientist, and I am not trying to precisely define the subject.  I’m not a journalist with an editor as a boss, writing for a publication with an editorial policy.  I’m just one person, trying to get information out in a way I think is most useful to people reading this blog, in a way I think they would enjoy reading it.

While I’m aware the subject is much deeper than the way I present it, I don’t make any apologies for that.

I’m very committed to the premise that you have as good or better chance of success in the garden with OP seeds than with commercial varieties.  I also believe in the promotion of heirloom and heritage varieties.  As a gardener you simply don’t need to know any more than this if you don’t want to!  If other things you read about plant breeding or seed saving make you nervous, you don’t need to pay attention to them.

If you’re not sure you’re saving seeds correctly, you shouldn’t share them with others, but there is no reason you can’t plant them yourself and expect at least a degree of success.

I think it’s just as important people starting with vegetable gardening should have support and encouragement, as people who want to do their own plant breeding should also have access to good information.

The Whole Truth

Agriculture and the way people grew their own food was very different 100 years ago, and there are some complicated aspects of the subject.  You need to understand some of these to see more successes in your garden.  I write about many of these from time to time, and there are many other sources of information both out on the Internet and in some well written books.

After you get and plant heirloom or OP seeds in your garden, and you want to improve on your results, you will need to understand how to properly save seeds to avoid cross pollination and maintain genepool size.  After this you need to understand how to identify desirable traits and selectively save seeds for these.  Then you may want to understand how to do large scale growouts in order to preserve and maintain existing varieties, or cross pollinating and breeding to make new varieties.  Truth be told, all these things have some complexities associated with them.

In fact, there is there’s almost no such thing as an heirloom food plant variety.  All plants change over time, and what we plant now is different than what was grown 100 years ago.  If it wasn’t a little different, it probably wouldn’t grow well.  The climate has changed, and there are different plant diseases around now than were in the past.  In fact it happens that plant varieties are taken out of genebanks after being in storage for a long time, only to find out they don’t grow well anymore.  Someone then has to try to bring these varieties up to date by doing a large scale growout and selection, something that then changes the nature of the variety.

Modern Heirlooms

What everyone seems to also forget, as they are looking hard for more and more heirloom varieties to grow, is they were all at one time created by a plant breeder using traditional methods.  What’s just as critical a problem as the loss of national heirloom varieties, is the loss of knowledge of traditional breeding techniques.  There are very few people around making new plant varieties in this way, so called ‘modern heirlooms’.  Modern heirloom varieties are just as important as older ones, and it’s very important we promote these as well.

America

Also what everyone needs to understand is just how important North America is in general, but the US specifically.  This is true for the past, present and future of traditional plant varieties.  Historically, people travelled from all over the world and brought their seeds with them.  This resulted in the largest collection of seeds in the world.  There have never been any seed laws with white lists, like there are in most other places in the world, meaning to some degree the traditions of seed saving and plant breeding managed to survive there.

Whatever our feelings may be about modern bio-technology, this part of the world remains the most important resource of knowledge, traditional plant varieties and genetic resources anywhere.  It’s going to remain the most important resource for the foreseeable future, because it takes time to transfer these things elsewhere, even under the best of circumstances.

While we are all concerned about the contamination from GM technology, there are few people more concerned than traditional plant breeders.  Great lengths have been taken to protect stocks of plant varieties in the US.  US seed company Baker Creek tested their collection of corn varieties last year, one of the most susceptible crops to cross pollination, and found 0% contamination!  There were no detectable GMOs anywhere in their collection.  That’s really quite an accomplishment.  Even here in Europe, the debate continues on what the acceptable level should be, currently at 0,9%.

Everyone should keep their head about them, and ask lots of questions if you have them, but no one should have any special fears over plant varieties that originate in the US that come from traditional plant breeding techniques and from a trustworthy source.  They are probably freer of GM or other genetic contamination than coming from other places.

What Should the Average Gardener Do?

Worry about learning to garden first.  Get a good garden going, learn things like mulching and composting.  Get some non-commercial seeds to start with.  Non-commercial seeds are ones that either come from a seed company that states a clear policy of never selling any other kind of seed (see seed source links on the front page of this blog), or from a gardener who knows what they are doing and has saved seeds from their own plants.  Don’t forget to check out the Seed Network!

When you are ready to take the next step, start looking into some of the other topics mentioned in this post.

Don’t forget to ask lots of questions, and look for other gardeners to help you along the way.