The Seed Ambassadors Project

Sarah’s Soapbox – Climate Crisis

January 3, 2020 / Sarah Kleeger

Each year we publish a political essay in our paper catalog. This year the Sarah’s Soapbox was cut due to space constraints, so we’ve posted it here instead.

2019 was not an easy year to be a farmer in most of the country. Here was no exception.

Nearly every month in 2019 we had new examples of the effects of climate change in our local area, not to mention the world at large. At our farm in Sweet Home, Oregon, unusually heavy snowfall landed in late February, burying our fields in snow just as many overwintering crops were beginning to go to seed. The weight of the wet snow snapped some of these nascent seedheads right off (Brussels sprouts, mustards). Then the sun came out in the beginning of March long enough for fields to dry out and flowers to bloom. In April, severe river flooding led to a nearby contract seed grower’s field, that was full of seed crops, being submerged by six feet (!) of water. The following month we had to irrigate to finish prepping our spring beds because of lack of rain, unheard of in our usually wet springs. After a summer that never really heated up, nonstop rains fell most of September and we lost a few dry seeded crops because of it (dry beans, lettuce). Our first frost appeared in mid-September this year, and then in October, several weeks of deep freezes (22˚F) put an undeniable end to the growing season – the kind that row cover doesn’t help – and took a few more crops along with it (sorghum, some flowers). Here, in an area where we frequently don’t even get a mild frost until November.

It’s now mid- November as I write, and we haven’t had a drop of rain for three weeks. November, historically our wettest month of the year. I can only wonder what December, and beyond that 2020, will have in store.

Oregon Canola Saga 2.0 (2019 ed.)

June 17, 2019 / Jo Erikson

Let’s start at the beginning…

Back in 2012 the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) threatened to abolish the longstanding canola exclusionary zone in the Willamette Valley. We fought back, with your help, to get legislation passed by the state which funded additional research and included a sunset clause on the canola restrictions in the valley. Here’s a good summary of why canola is problematic for specialty seed production and where we stood in the winter of 2013 from Oregon’s Agricultural Progress by Gail Wells, Canola In The Valley.

HB2427

Oregon HB2427 was passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2013 and the resulting research conducted by Oregon State University (OSU) was presented in 2017. It’s a whooping 105 pages and you can read the whole thing if you like here (the Executive Summary and Recommendations are pages 6-11 of the PDF). In the interest of getting to the point, here are the highlights.

Is canola uniquely problematic? OSU says No.

OSU researchers determined that under current cultural practices in the Willamette Valley there were no unique disease, pests, weed, or cross pollination problems associated with canola. Meaning that turnip and radish have just as many problems as canola and since we don’t currently regulate those crops, why would we limit or regulate canola specifically.

What is up with so-called Public Plant Breeding? – 2018 Rye Ramble

January 23, 2018 / Andrew Still / 1 Comment

The 2018 Rye Ramble – What is up with so-called Public Plant Breeding?

Why are public plant breeders releasing most of their breeding work privately, as patented or protected? Should we still call it public plant breeding?

In previous Rye Rambles, I have called out the bad behavior of corporate seed companies patenting seed and breeding hybrids with new techniques that make it nearly impossible to save seeds. This year I have been thinking about my friends in the public plant breeding sector, university plant breeders that have a long history of doing good work and fighting the good fight for the public. In recent years their situation has changed and become less public plant breeding and more privatized.

I get super excited when they release a new variety into the public domain. However, the reason I get excited is because it is now a rare event and these public plant breeders must fight and sacrifice for this privilege. University administrators have increasingly required the use of utility patents and Plant Variety Protection (PVP) for new releases, and/or they impose royalties and Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs). All of these tactics restrict their use. Here are a few related questions stuck in my craw.

• Why are the so-called “public” plant breeders releasing most of their breeding work privately, as patented or protected?

• Why are so-called “private” independent plant breeders releasing their varieties to the public domain?

• Should university plant breeders be called public breeders if and only if they release all their varieties to the public domain?

• Should we be called public plant breeders and they be called the private plant breeders?

Beating Black Leg on Brassicas

March 4, 2016 / Sarah Kleeger / 0 Comments

No FOMO* for Phoma

There are plenty of things about Oregon’s Willamette Valley that are worthy of FOMO, or the *Fear of Missing Out. We have mild winters, fertile soils, & natural beauty abounds. Phoma lingam, however, is not FOMO-worthy. Since 2014, the Willamette Valley has been hit with Phoma lingam, aka Black Leg, a fungal disease that affects all species of Brassica family plants including kale, cabbage, turnips, & many other important food crops, as well as many common weeds such as wild mustard. Black leg causes stunted growth, girdling of the stem, & can lead to great reductions in yield & sometimes plant death. It is estimated that around 10,000 acres of Willamette Valley brassicas were infected in 2014, & similar numbers may have been infected in 2015.

What is being done about it?

The disease is thought to have come in on infected seed, & so in response the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) has passed an administrative rule requiring all Brassica seed that will be planted in the Willamette Valley in quantities over 1/2 oz, to have been tested from a qualified, approved laboratory, and to be treated for the disease, even if the test results are negative.

At Adaptive Seeds, seed quality is a priority & we are committed to providing seeds that exceed our customers’ expectations. Even though most of our Brassica varieties are not sold in packages over 1/2 oz, we have decided to test all of our Brassica seed lots, & all of the test results so far have been negative. At this point, we are not treating any of our seed prior to sale.

We Love Growing Dry Beans, You Might Too!

May 20, 2015 / Sarah Kleeger / 29 Comments

Growing dry beans can be a fun & beautiful addition to the garden. If you have space, it is easy to produce homestead quantities of dry beans to feed your family. On a small farm scale growing dry beans can provide a profitable addition to the farmer’s market display. Conveniently, seed saving is the same as crop harvest for dry beans, which makes them a crop you only have to buy seed for once (unless you accidentally eat them all).

We sometimes sell a mix of bean varieties as a “Bean Party.” So pretty!

Here at Adaptive Seeds, we love to grow beans almost as much as we like to eat them (which is a lot). Producing them is a bit of a process but it’s pretty fun & you’re rewarded with piles of delicious, nutritious jewels at the end so it’s totally worth it.

As market growers, we were attracted to dry bean production because we saw a need for local staple food production – for food security as much as to fill a market niche – & soon discovered we could sell all of the beans we could produce. We also really like having dry beans fill a spot in our field rotations. In the past we have planted as many as 6 acres in dry beans, but it didn’t take us long to figure out that if we planted less acreage but took better care of it, we could have much higher yields & fewer headaches. Since we’ve shifted our focus to seed production, we have reduced our dry bean crop size further & now grow about ½ acre of beans per year, still selling some as food. Following is an assortment of tips & tricks for dry bean production, & details of our bean enterprise budget from 2014.

Planting

In our area (The Willamette Valley of Oregon), dry beans can be planted until the beginning of June, which means you still have some time to get a crop in the ground this season. Our goal is to sow our dry beans by mid-May, but we have successfully harvested earlier varieties (such as Early Warwick) from sowing as late as June 10.

The Control of Seed and Seed Sovereignty

January 10, 2015 / Andrew Still / 10 Comments

Rye Ramble (from the 2015 Adaptive Seeds Catalog)

The Control of Seed and Seed Sovereignty

At Adaptive Seeds, we talk about our work of Bringing Biodiversity Back. Part of that, of course, is growing and stewarding seed and providing you with good seed stock for your own seed saving efforts. But seed work isn’t only done in the field, and preserving seed sovereignty and freedom takes more than just saving seeds. Working to keep seeds free of control mechanisms, such as patenting, is another important aspect of promoting and preserving agricultural biodiversity, as is building awareness about what seed control mechanisms exist.

We often feel like outliers in the seed world because we wish to keep seed a free, sovereign community asset that is passed down between the generations and between friends. A growing number of people share this pro-sovereignty perspective and we are excited to be part of this community. The more I think about all the different forms of seed control schemes, the more I realize that it is very strange to try to empower seed freedom. It seems like the multinational seed industry is desperately trying to put our collective inheritance into proprietary bondage for the benefit of their shareholders as quickly as possible.

You might think, “Your seeds are not free, they cost money.” So what is meant by free? Like open source software we believe seeds should be, Free as in speech, not as in beer. In a metaphorical sense I see all seed as free and what we get paid for is not the seed per say but the service of stewardship and production of a precious gift. A seed is a living organism that has intrinsic value and a long history, of which we seed stewards have only contributed a small, very recent part. We can’t own that.

The concept of seed ownership is problematic in part because it is rooted in entitlement philosophy. As humans we all have a little bit of this philosophy always under the surface. It is a trait that helps us survive in competitive situations of scarcity, but I think it is inappropriate in situations of abundance. As an overt practice it is more common in institutions and businesses (especially in regards to Intellectual Property rights), than in our personal behavior.