Some thoughts on seed ordering....

[April Manier]

I recently posted my seeds for sale and one of you stated that you wished they were for the area you are in. We breed seeds and of course they are acclimated to our area.

But where are your seeds grown? A lot of you are using seed companies that are out of your area or just plain cool, but don't trust them! My husband pioneered lots of grants about seed production and genetic diversification. KNOW YOUR SEEDS!

If you are buying from Baker Creek, those seeds come from all over the place. Now adays there are all these "varieties" out there that seem interesting, but are they? Are they anything different that the old staples? Are they really producing fruits that are in line with the kind of genetic standards we should be upholding? I can save seed from my romas and rename them whatever I like, then market them as a new "variety".

I really want to challenge everyone to ASK where they got their seeds. To pay attention to how they perform and hold their feet to the fire about quality and usability! We received seeds from 3 well known seed companies that were NOT any sort of heirloom let alone what they advertised and they were unapologetic about it! These are seed companies so many of you use.

We need to get educated and raise industry standards. Be careful about what you buy. Be careful about how you save seed. This is serious, and food is power.

Upcoming article about seed saving and preserving the genetic diversity of plants. There are NOT 300 heirloom tomatoes folks. Don't buy the hype!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[grow_my_own]

I will have to look to see what you have for sale. I buy the majority of my seeds from an organic seed preservationist and ex-marine in Kentucky whom I found on ebay. Sidney is right up front about where he gets his seeds, how he collects/saves his seeds, and all are open-pollinated, non-GMO, non-hybrid varieties.

Since you're a seed expert, though, I have a question that has been running through my mind recently & hopefully you (and anyone/everyone else reading this forum) can help me out here.

Just because something is a hybrid does not mean it is necessarily a GMO, does it? I have seen some places that sell "organic" and "non-GMO hybrid corn" and want to make sure that I am not growing Frankencorn. Not only do we eat it, but we will also feed it to our chickens. Sometimes, I think crossing/hybridizing can produce a better-tasting fruit/vegetable, but I may have a misunderstanding about how that whole process works.

This is the first time in all my years of gardening that it has been important to me where my seeds come from and how they are produced. I just learned this past year how Monsanto has their finger in almost all things to do with food production and am pretty disgusted by the whole ugly mess. I bought seeds for years and years from major seed companies that are most likely Monsanto-owned or subsidized.

It would be good to know for sure which seed companies have Monsanto all up in their cheesecake. Can y'all name a few for me so I can be sure to avoid those? Thanks!

 

[digitS']

Just quoting Wikipedia and paring it down a bit: . . . "GMO . . . is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. These techniques . . . use DNA molecules from different sources . . . transferred into an organism, giving it modified or novel genes."

Sometimes, an organism, like the mule, is really quite a strange creature. Donkeys have 62 chromosomes, horses have 64 chromosomes, and mules have 63 chromosomes. A mule is an interspecific hybrid (parents are different species). It cannot reproduce.

Most hybrids are something less complicated. I sometimes think that we call them "hybrids" just because we prefer the word to "crossbred."

Two inbred lines - like Rhode Island Red and Barred Rock chickens - can be crossed. The offspring will have some characteristics that we value. If we allow the offspring to interbreed, their offspring may not have the characteristic that we value - like, having different feather color depending on their sex. The offspring can still reproduce just fine, make good laying hens, stay healthy - all of that.

The offspring of 2 or more inbred lines often show something that is called "heterosis." Heterosis is also known as "hybrid vigor." It seems that the hybrid offspring will often have more physical vigor than the parents. With livestock and plants, this can be very important in itself. It explains why you see so many cattle herds of mixed colors. Angus, Hereford, and Shorthorn are commonly used in breeding programs because of the hybrid vigor of the offspring of their combined genes.

Long before GMO's, there was hybridizing. Really, it goes all the way back to the dawn of agriculture when those inbred lines began to show up because of the isolation of 1 village farming community from another village farming community on the other side of the mountain. If a farmer could get the bull or some wheat seed from 1 side of the mountain back to his farm on the other side of the mountain - he found that his calves and wheat crop were better than before!

It might make sense for the village farmer to keep the 2 lines separate. For example, his cousins on the other side of the mountain would continue to have the herd that produced the bull and he would continue to have the herd that produced the cows - 2 inbred lines. Of course, he couldn't allow the offspring to reproduce if he wanted to keep it that way. So, he'd still have to keep his scruffy old bull around so that he could have heifers from the cows that would grow up to breed with the charming new bull from the other side of the mountain.

Much of the history of tomato breeding has been recorded. We can actually buy the seed and grow plants from the 2 inbred lines of tomatoes and cross them ourselves to get a hybrid tomato plant that was first grown 50 or more years ago.

Steve