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It was a rainy day yesterday as I planted out my seedlings grown from True Potato Seed (TPS) received from Tom, so the pictures probably seem a little grey.  Rebsie of Daughter of the Soil planted hers out a few days ago, and many others across Europe are planting them in their gardens too.  This past year Tom travelled across Europe, meeting people, giving away his seeds and doing a series of workshops.

These seedlings are results of crosses made by Tom in his garden, between different historical and modern potato varieties.  There are a lot of these crosses, and for the sake of convenience these new varieties don’t yet have names but rather have been assigned a number.

These numbers and the genetics behind them are discussed by Tom in the videos I linked to above.

I was a little late in planting these seedlings out, and you can see some of the new tubers are starting to form in the little plastic pots I started the plants in.  Sorry, my camera didn’t focus properly on this.

In Simple Terms — The Genetics

The UK scientists say they are trialling two genes found in wild potato relatives, shown to result in late blight resistance.  These genes have been inserted into Desiree, a common commercial potato variety.  I have yet to verify this, but I believe we have these same two genes in our potatoes.  In this sense, our trials overlap. [edit: This probably isn't true]

The genes in Tom Wagner’s potatoes go far beyond the trial in the UK.

Before, during and after Tom’s trip to Europe he’s been searching for and collecting the genetic materials from varieties of potatoes already shown to have blight resistance.  He’s been doing this by collecting tubers and seeds from these plants, putting them in has garden in the US, and using traditional breeding methods to cross pollinate them.  As opposed to the two genes the UK scientists are working with, Tom is working with millions of genes.

One Gene is Not Enough

One of the problems in breeding late blight resistance in potatoes is it’s a quickly mutating disease, capable of overcoming the resistance in a short time.  Many varieties created in the past are no longer resistant for this reason.  In order to overcome this problem, and create a variety that’s even more resistant, it’s necessary to use combinations of genes.  This is why the scientists in the UK are working with two and Tom is working with as many as he can find.

This is often referred to as vertical resistance or gene stacking.

The Ongoing Battle

Late blight dates back to the time of the Irish Potato famine when the potato varieties grown were susceptible to the disease and all quickly destroyed by a sudden outbreak.  The problem was made worse, because the number of varieties grown was very small, so there was little chance of any of them having natural resistance.

It’s believed late blight was originally brought to Europe in an infected tuber in a potato shipment from North America.  The disease quickly spread in Europe because the climate here provides a much more favorable environment for it.  It was also an unusually serious problem because the potato had become one of the most important sources of food for Europeans.

The approach taken to control late blight until now has been with chemical fungicides.   This approach has not been without it’s problems however.

Late blight is nearly impossible to control once the plant has become infected.  There are chemicals that can do this, but are generally considered too toxic for human consumption.  This means you have to prevent the plants from becoming infected in the first place, and so you need to begin applying chemicals when you first think an infection may be possible, often weeks before an infection would actually occur.

As late blight has mutated over the years, the chemicals used to control it have necessarily become stronger and stronger and more toxic to both people and the environment.  We are now to the point where literally tons and tons of these chemicals are used every year in Europe alone.  It’s to the point where developing stronger chemicals is no longer feasible.

A recent development in late blight mutation is it’s now reproducing sexually, and different strains can now exchange DNA.  Until now all reproduction has been asexual, meaning mutations were considerably slower.  It’s all but assured future mutations of late blight will now occur much more rapidly.

Two-Gene vs. Multi-Gene Approach

The two gene approach taken by the UK scientists has a high chance of resulting in late blight resistance. The real question however, is how long this resistance will last.

The argument of course, is when the resistance of this variety is no longer adequate, they will look for more genes in wild potato relatives and create a new GM variety.  If necessary, they can use more than two genes.  This approach however looks an awful lot like the fungicides now being used.  As these scientists move from one gene to the next, work their way through all the combinations they think of, eventually they will reach the end when it no longer works.

In a case like this, the interactions between all the genes are not likely to ever be fully understood.  The UK scientists will only be working with genes or combinations of genes they can single out as being important in existing varieties, and they won’t see everything.

Tom’s multi gene approach on the other hand is much more likely to be sustainable, and is more likely to show functional resistance on farms.

By using Tom’s approach an unknown number of genes will be involved in the resistance.  By taking existing resistant varieties, using the combinations of their genes in their entirety, all genes involved in that resistance can be used, not just the ones that can be specifically identified.  In addition, by creating crosses with several different resistant varieties, all the genes from all the varieties can be used in their totality and in different combinations.

By creating a number of resistant varieties in this way, then growing them in different places and continuing the process of crossing new resistant varieties as they appear, new resistant genes will be discovered.  This is in part because there will be natural mutations in the plants themselves creating new genes, but also previously unknown ones will be found.  This ongoing process is much more likely to produce late blight resistance in the long run, and the chance of ‘running out of genes’ like what will happen eventually with the GM approach is significantly reduced.

In addition by working with a number of different varieties resistant to late blight in different ways, all at the same time, the chance of losing the entire season’s potato harvest like what happened during the Irish Potato Famine is significantly reduced.

Other Benefits of Biodiversity

There is another very important benefit to Tom’s multi gene approach.  If one picture is worth 1000 words, have a look at some of Tom’s recent potato lines (click to enlarge):

Which would you rather eat, one of these or a GM Desiree potato?

One of the things Tom likes doing is working with older varieties that were favorites among our ancestors.  For example, Tom has Irish roots and likes to work with the Lumper potato which was the most widely grown at the time of the Irish Potato Famine.  In fact he’s created a number of blight resistant varieties using the Lumper as a basis.

By using Tom’s traditional breeding methods, it’s possible to recover traits in popular old varieties, and bring them back into new ones.

Some Other Important Differences

How about we talk security fences here?  Here’s a picture of my security fence:

It’s a 4 ft hedge behind a shallow canal.

Unlike the £20.000 8 ft security fence and 24 hour security guard the scientists in the UK have, I only have the good graces of the other allotmenteers in my complex.  Someone is usually around in the day, but otherwise my plot is unattended.

Another difference is funding.  The costs of everyone participating in Tom’s trials are paid out of pocket.  Tom in particular has devoted his whole life to his work, has never been paid royalties for his varieties, and uses huge amounts of his family’s money to pay his costs.  If we had the money invested in the UK security fence alone, we could dramatically expand our trials not to mention offset some of our expenses.

A Specific Response to the UK Scientists

In the media recently were some statements made by people involved in the UK trials, and I wanted to respond to one of them.

From the BBC:

Professor Jones said that the trial was well within the biosecurity parameters required in order for permission to be granted.

“The rules are that the field trial has to be at least 20 metres from adjacent conventional potato fields,” he said.

“Very hypothetically, if a few pollen grains make it from our GM potatoes to some cultivated potatoes, given that we do not eat the fruit but the tubers, there is absolutely no way that the DNA we use can enter the human food chain.”

“There are also no wild relatives of potato in Europe that it could cross (breed) with.”

I think the argument could be made that contamination from the field trial is unlikely, but the idea of 20 metres being adequate isolation is totally absurd.  First the variety used in this trial, Desiree, produces large amounts of pollen and is a very poor choice in terms of reducing contamination.  Insects can carry pollen from potatoes large distances, and if these potatoes are ever grown commercially the contamination would be widespread.  If the scientists were concerned about spreading contamination, why not use a variety that doesn’t produce pollen?

A male sterile variety, for example British Queen, could easily pick up a single grain of pollen from this GM variety, turning it into a seed ball that could get lost in the field and produce weeds for years to come.

Potato tubers themselves are always left behind in farmers fields, which then turn into weeds.  Potatoes by their nature are a weedy plant.  There may not be potato relatives growing wild in Europe, but there are plenty of possibilities for contamination.

The spreading of this sort of contamination threatens the breeding work I’ve laid out here, and puts the entire future of organic potatoes in jeopardy.

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Someone in the UK just sent me an email asking about it.   He said his grandfather used to grow this on his allotment in the 1950′s, 60′s and 70′s.

This variety can be found in old seed catalogs from the 1800′s and maybe earlier.  What a shame if this variety made it to the 1970′s only to be lost.

Does anyone know anything about this variety, as well as hopefully where to get seeds?  If so, please get in touch.  I’ll then put you in contact with the person who sent the email.

I’ve checked GRIN, the USDA genebank.  I’ve also looked in some old Seed Savers Exchange catalogs.  I haven’t been able to find it anywhere.

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The Problems

One of the problems at the moment is a lot of people living in North America are very keen to get seeds from Europe, and this is putting a strain on the ability of European gardeners to send seeds out.  I think in general, many and probably most Europeans are delighted to send seeds to people in NA, as long as these seeds are truly not available there.

In Europe most heirloom varieties are unavailable for purchase here, because seed laws make them illegal to sell.  On top of this, a general lack of market competition and current exchange rates makes seeds considerably more expensive here.  Honestly, many of us turn to US gardeners or US seed companies for our own seeds, so it’s a little silly for us to then turn around and send them back to a gardener there.

Given these and other reasons, it’s important right now for us to promote seed exchanges within Europe, rather than sending seeds to other countries.

If You Live in the US…

Please, look locally before asking someone in Europe to send you seeds.  You have access to cheap seeds, and in many cases you can purchase seeds locally for less than what it costs someone in Europe to send them from their garden.  If you want free or cheap seeds from someone’s garden, try asking someone on the Homegrown Goodness discussion forum.

By all means, if you think something is only available in Europe, please ask someone there to get them for you.  In particular, I’ll be happy to help people out under these circumstances.  If you get seeds in this way, please make an effort to grow the plants out for more seeds, and redistribute them locally.

Lets all work together to keep seeds from going back and forth over the Atlantic for no reason, and not waste the money and time of generous gardeners who are willing to send their seeds to others for free.

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In any event, like everything else on this blog, you should consider it more my opinion than fact.

Anyway, if you would like to see their position on the matter, she provided the following link.

In particular she wished to be very clear that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation did not fund the construction of the vault, nor do they fund it’s day to day operations.

I hope in making this post I have given an opportunity for them to express their opinion, and if not I would welcome them leaving a comment in their own words laying out their own point of view.

The original point I was trying to make still stands.  I will not be seeking to use the funding or operation model of the Global Crop Diversity Trust in trying to assist public domain plant breeders!

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In connection with Tom Wagner’s visit last year, he gave me a collection of true potato seeds from his breeding projects.  In the seed tray above you see the seeds germinating, with the numbers corresponding with his various breeding lines.  He explained the pedigree of many of his lines in this video.

If you are in Europe and would like to join in on the trials at the last minute, I have a few seeds left over.  There’s still plenty of diversity in these seeds, but you need to understand to some extent you would be getting the leftovers.  If you are interested, send me an email.  As part of participating you would be expected to stay in touch and let us know how things go, good or bad.  Beyond that, there are no strings and it’s a great opportunity to experience potato breeding first hand.  You’ll need probably 20 m2 or so of garden space available.

If you live outside of Europe, you should get in touch with Tom directly.  His discussion forum is probably the best way to do this.

For me this is a very important project in many ways.  Included in many of these lines are late blight resistance, as well as many other exciting tastes and traits that come with the biodiversity selected by a professional public domain plant breeder.  Late blight and the chemicals used to combat it are threatening the environment in Europe and the consumers who eat the potatoes.  It’s the excuse seed companies are using to justify the creation of a GM potato variety that’s resistant to late blight.  This past year Europe commited itself to phasing out the dangerous chemicals used in this way, so within a decade all that’s likely to be grown for human consumption will be blight resistant varieties.  Thanks in a large part to Tom, we won’t be forced to accept GM potatoes without any other alternatives being available.

The sort of plant breeding Tom is doing, public domain plant breeding, is very different from what commercial plant breeders do.  Tom has a single priority; to develop lines of potatoes that people want to eat and grow in their gardens or farms.  While Tom would certainly like to earn some money doing what he does, the varieties he produces are not dependent on this.  He simply does everything he can to create the most exciting and delicious potatoes possible.

This is really a big contrast to large seed companies like Monsanto, who create varieties strictly for profit.  These for profit lines generally have little to do with taste, but rather what makes the perfect Mc Donalds french fry or what grows with the most uniform and blemish free appearance.

Most garden bloggers who grow their own food, and particularly those that read this blog, are very attracted to the idea of growing heirloom varieties.  Most people especially are interested in varieties associated with the history of the area they live.  This is a really good thing!  We all know these varieties taste great, are suitable for seed saving and often grow very well in our gardens.

What people sometimes forget is where these varieties came from!  Someone had to create them.  Like Tom’s potatoes, someone in the past created something they thought was exciting and tasted great, in fact someone not very different from Tom.

The kinds of varieties Tom creates are often called modern heirlooms, and are created exactly the same way heirloom varieties were created in the past.

The Current Crisis

The problem we have now is there are not many people like Tom left around, and many of them are getting old.

There’s been a big increase of awareness in the last few years about the importance of choosing to grow heirloom varieties in your garden, as a way of keeping these varieties alive.  There has not however been the same awareness of keeping breeding projects like Tom’s alive.

Directly and indirectly I know of about 5-10 people like Tom, who do projects like he does.  I know there are others, and there are increasing numbers of gardeners who are experimenting a bit in thier gardens, but the number of plant breeders who are actively involved in producing new varieties for public release is very, very small.  Surely most readers of this blog will know I’m well connected in the world of garden vegetables, and at least in the English speaking world I would probably be in touch with most of these people.  The number is very, seriously, small.

What I find equally distressing about the extraordinarily small number of public domain plant breeders are their personal circumstances.

Without any exceptions all the plant breeders I know have genuine financial difficulties.  They are sometimes living in an apartment without any of their own land on which to grow things.  They lack adequate tools or assistance with the physical tasks that confront them.  Their sole income is often selling the seeds they produce, effectively selling hours and hours of work and investment of personal resources for almost nothing.  Usually they are supported by a spouse that works.  It’s not unusual for them to lose years, even decades of work, because they don’t have adequate storage facilities for their breeding materials and they become ill or have other personal problems.

There is simply no functioning mechanism in today’s world for these people to be adequately paid for the work they do.  They produce seeds that are free of intellectual property rights, sold at the cost of production and distribution or traded between gardeners for free, and no royalties ever find their way back to the breeders.  There’s honestly often no one there to help when they need it the most, certainly not if they aren’t someone who’s very well known like Tom.

What does that say about the world we live in where the people who are creating the food we want to eat, with breeding projects that are the only real competition to Monsanto, and they are among the poorest among us?  There isn’t likely to be genuine transition of modern agriculture to sustainable methods without the participation of traditional plant breeders, and it’s so incredibly short sighted we are treating them this way.

As the US begins it’s anti-trust investigation into it’s domestic agriculture, we are all hoping there will be big changes, and public domain plant breeding is one of the possible alternatives.

As well as growing Tom’s potato seeds this year, I plan to talk a lot more about this problem as well as look for some solutions.

At the moment I can’t accept small donations, but I’m working on ways I might be able to do this in the future.  If you’re someone with a substantial amount of money to invest in trying to solve this problem, I hope you will get in touch with me and see if we can work something out.

While I’m open to any and all discussions, my particular interest is looking for mechanisms that will avoid ownership of the seeds or the channels of payment and royalties to the breeders.  For example, in the past year we have seen an ugly fight for control of the Seed Savers Exchange in the US, we have seen a similar fight for control of Kokopelli Seeds in Europe, and we’ve witnessed the opening of a global seed vault in Norway in which Bill Gates is one of the largest funders.

I am looking for a mechanism for funding public domain plant breeders where control is not something that’s owned, paid for or fought over.  This is the food of our future and our past, and it belongs in the public domain.  In particular I will be looking for a mechanism similar to what’s used for open source software like Linux.

I am not looking to create a non for profit organization controlled by a board of directors.

I will be looking for ways to both provide immediate, direct assistance to plant breeders, as well as provide long term incomes and royalties to the breeders as well as their families.

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Even though I’ve been in touch with Madeline off and on for a few years now, I learned quite a few things from this interview.  I think it’s really great she was able to not only take on the task of promoting heritage seeds, but turn it into a functioning independent seed company.

Independent European seed companies are becoming rare these days, especially those that grow all or a portion of their own seeds.  With the uncertain future ahead for Kokopelli Seeds, Brown Envelope Seeds looks set to become one of the most important seed companies for the home gardener in Europe.

Especially if you’re in Ireland, but also anywhere within travelling distance, consider coming to one of their open days and seed swaps.  Participants are welcome to camp on their farm.

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If you live in Canada and are interested in heritage seeds, be sure to visit:

Salt Spring Seeds: Sustainable Canadian seed company selling rare and unusual seeds. Online catalogue includes heirloom tomatoes, quinoa, amaranth, seed garlic and a new zero mile diet kit.

and

Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada: We are a charitable organization dedicated to the health and vitality of the earth through the preservation and promotion of heritage seeds.

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I set a batch of peas out a few days ago, and I’ve just started another indoors.

These past two years I’ve been using a method I found on the Real Seeds website, in the archives of their newsletters I think.

The basic problem in our area is if you direct sow pea seeds, they often just don’t come up.  I guess there are a few reasons for this, rotting in cold ground and getting eaten by mice, perhaps others.  Anyway the solution is to start them indoors.

I used to start them in individual pots, but this was really time consuming as well as needing a lot of potting soil.  The secret I learned from Real seeds is to just sprout them in paper towels (called kitchen roll in some places)!  That’s all you need is for the seeds to have sprouted, and they won’t rot in the ground and the mice won’t eat them!  This really saves a lot of trouble.

When you plant them, instead of sowing heavily in expectation of germination that’s less than 100% and thinning later, you can sow the distance apart you want the plants to be, because most will grow.

This has worked really well for me so far!  Does anyone else grow peas this way?

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I’ve also gone through and just done a general clean up of old links and removed links to people who don’t seem to be publishing a current list of seeds.

If I’m missing anything, or if you would like to be added or removed from the list, please let me know.  If I’ve deleted you in error, please accept my apologies and let me know so I can put you back.

If you’re looking for seeds to grow in 2010, please have a look at the current list!

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Years ago now, I posted the advice that if you save beans from your garden, you should freeze them before storing them.  This year, I’m paying the price of not following my own advice.

In addition, these probably have something to do with it:

These are sacks I buy my coffee in.  I’ve posted about this before too.  I buy green coffee beans, that come from many exotic tropical places in the world, then roast them myself.

The holes in my beans are from Bean Weevils, more specifically I suspect Coffee Bean Weevils.

Of course I thought I was being clever by reusing my coffee sacks to store my garden beans!

In my case, I think I caught it pretty fast.  I first noticed them in November, and quickly froze my bean seeds.  Weevils are hardy enough to survive a day or two in the freezer, but are usually killed after several days.  Occasionally you have to thaw and refreeze the seeds, in order to mimic the weather cycles that cause them to hatch, in order to kill remaining eggs.  In my case, freezing them once seems to have taken care of it.

I’ve had a couple of reinfestations over the last few weeks, and by now all of my bean seeds are a little suspect.  I don’t think I lost any important varieties, but did throw some unimportant ones away.  The most irritating thing of course is now my beans aren’t appetizing to eat, because there are dead larvae hidden away in many of them.  I’m not sure how this will impact the germination rates of my seeds, but I’m sure it will be reduced for many of them.

For those of you hoping to trade bean seeds with me, I’m sure you’ll understand why I’m not sending them out this year.

Seed storage is an all too often neglected topic, and one that’s very important.  I’ve heard it said loosing seeds in storage is more common than crop failures.

You often have to balance risks like this.  It’s very possible for example to lose seeds in the process of freezing them, or storing them in an airtight container.  It’s also possible to lose them to pests like this.  Sometimes there aren’t any right or wrong answers…

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In fact this is something I’ve known for a while, and coincidentally sent Matt an email about the other day, but I’ve never posted here on the subject.

It’s just a fact, the science of genetic engineering (GE) is quickly moving out of the laboratory and into the home.  Not just in our ability to buy products that are themselves a result of GE, but also in our own ability to make GE organisms.

Already, if you have a well equiped home, it’s possible to do an awful lot.  The cost of this equipment is within the budgets of many people, it’s only getting cheaper and it’s accuracy increasing.

The amount of publicly available data that can assist GE is also increasing at a dramatic rate; including things like decoded genomes and cataloges of marker genes (a fancy term that just means genes with a known trait).  All of this applies to plants, microorganisms, animals and even humans.

So while the debate now often centers on the latest Roundup ready gene Monsanto inserted into our soybeans, tomorrow it could be the latest accident caused by a teenager or the mess intentionally caused by someone knowledgeable.

I often compare GE to abortions.  I don’t really think it makes sense for anyone to be for or against abortions.  An abortion is just a medical procedure.  You can argue if it’s immoral, talk about it in terms of legal or illegal, safe or unsafe, early or late, but you can never deny the existence of the procedure itself.

This is really where we are now with GE.  It doesn’t make sense to call it good or bad.  The genie is out of the bottle.  Now it’s time to start learning as much as possible as quickly as possible about the science, and to focus honestly and diligently on what the real risks are.

In the meantime, this crap doesn’t belong in our food or the environment, until we’ve had a chance to honestly research and learn more about it!

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This all started when I read Christina’s post here, about some mandarins in the garden of a friend.  She mentioned a variety named Shirokolistvennyi, a Russian variety believed to be very cold hardy.  That started me thinking, if there was a cold hardy mandarin that grows in Russia, why couldn’t I grow it here in Amsterdam?

I asked Christina if her friend might be able to send me a cutting to make a graft with, only to find out she lives in an area under citrus quarantine, and scion wood is not even allowed to be transported locally.  This is to prevent the spread of disease.

After some looking, I found some scion budwood was available from the USDA GRIN germplasm collection.  I agreed with the curator he would send me some — if I would first send him a copy of the ‘letter of authorization’ he said was required for European import of citrus.  So I set off on the great paper chase.

I called customs, the plant disease control people, the people who perform inspections on plant imports (this has all been privatized, outsourced and just a real mess in general).

Everyone I talked to said the same thing.  There are no restrictions on importing citrus budwood into the Netherlands (I don’t know about the rest of the EU), so there was no ‘letter of authorization’ to issue, in fact no one I spoke to had ever heard of a letter of authorization.

The USDA GRIN curator said he couldn’t issue a phytosanitary certificate or any other paperwork, until I could give him the letter of authorization.

Finally we agreed he would just skip all the paperwork, and send it!

So there it is, in the middle, in the plastic bag.

While waiting for GRIN to process my budwood request, I set out to find rootstock for grafting.  Those are the two plants, Poncirus trifoliata, also called Trifolate orange, a citrus relative, said to be very cold hardy and good for use as grafting rootstock.  They are really thorny!

I found the plants at a local nursery De Groene Prins.  It turns out the guy that runs the nursery has been looking for cold hardy citrus to grow locally for some time now, so we had a walk through his garden and he showed me some of the plants he’s experimenting with!  He was very knowledgeable and helpful, and certainly worth a visit for anyone looking for exotic cold hardy plants in the Netherlands.

Above is a grafting knife I bought a few months ago on a visit to San Diego California.  They sell it there in part because it’s used by the citrus industry.  It’s made by Victorinox, and in fact pretty widely available.

I had two plants, so I decided I would make two different kinds of grafts.  First a standard graft, then a bud graft.

For the standard graft, I cut a piece of the budwood and the top of the plant at roughly the same angle.  The budwood is on the left here.  I also cut a further notch in it, that was too small to really show up in the picture, but it is right below the tips of each of these cuts in the down direction.  The intention is to make a bit of a notch, so the two pieces will interlock a bit.

Here they are slotted into one another.  The budwood is on top.  This stayed in place long enough by itself to take this picture.

Next I put some grafting wax on it.  I read different places on the Internet that you should either put the wax on first or tape if first, not knowing for sure which I should do, I started with the wax.

Actually while looking at the pictures I took to make this post I see maybe if I used tape first, I could have taped the graft closed a bit.  None of the surfing around on the subject I’ve done had suggested this might be a good idea.

The wax was purchased locally and called grafting wax, but I’m not really sure it’s the right product.  I needed to melt it over a flame first, and it wasn’t very easy to apply.  None of the wax really penetrated the graft at all, it’s just sort of stuck to the outside.

In the absence of an actual product called grafting tape, I used masking tape.  I had read somewhere that it was okay to do this, but I’m not sure…

Above is the bud graft I made.  The process of doing this was far less picturesque.  In fact it was very difficult, and I hope not too much blood is showing in this picture.  Cutting a bud off the scion wood was no problem, together with some surrounding plant tissue.

You are supposed to slot this into a T-shaped cut on the stem of the root stock.  This is really a lot harder to make than it might seem.  It’s very woody, and when you make a cut with a knife that’s so sharp, the cut disappears right away.  When you try to cut it again with the knife, you make a second parallel cut, that just damages the plant and isn’t very good for slotting the bud into.

Anyway, next time I will approach it more like using the knife to sort of gouge the cut up from below.

The graft is held in place with a rubber band, as an alternative to grafting rubber.

This was sort of a difficult first grafting attempt to make, but then again I guess I’m never for doing anything the easy way.

Actually, in the process of ordering the budwood and buying the rootstock, a Russian friend of mine searched the Internet in Russian for this variety of mandarin.  It turns out it’s more commonly known by the name Gruzinskiy Shirokolistnyi, which means Georgian Wide Leaved Mandarin.  There isn’t any specific information available in Russian about it being cold hardy, but it is supposed to be good for low light conditions (at the possible expense of fewer fruits).  This is promising for me, because low light in the winter can be a problem.  Georgia however has a much warmer climate than me, so I’m a little worried it really is cold hardy.

What my Russian friend said she read, in general, mandarins are hardy down to -5C with no damage, and at -10C may be killed.  It’s pretty unusual the temperature gets down to -10C here, but it does happen.  This winter it got to about -12C.

At the same time, the rootstock I’m using is supposed to make the tree more cold hardy, so this may help.  I understand the rootstock is good down to -20C by itself.

Anyway, I guess I first have to worry about the graft working, then worry about the cold hardiness.

The last part of this story is that I had extra budwood left over after making these two grafts.  I traded them with the guy who runs the nursery where I got the Trifolate orange for these above!  Three seeds from his Yuzu lemon tree, also known to be very cold hardy.  He had two of these plants, one outdoors and one in his polytunnel.  The outdoor plant didn’t have any fruits yet, perhaps still too young, but it survived this past very cold winter with flying colors.  His indoor plant had some fruit on it, and it looked and smelled like a very nice quality lemon.

If anyone out there who has ever done grafting before has any comments, I’d love to hear them.  Especially if this doesn’t work, I’d love to know why…

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A number of posts have been made in recent weeks on different blogs about Monsanto buying nearly all commercial seed companies, everywhere.  There was a particularly good one on the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog.

It’s pretty clear in the aftermath of all this consolidation, the next frontier for Monsanto is the Internet.

This blog has received quite a number of requests for Monsanto seed companies to be added to my list of recommended sources of seeds in recent weeks, and comments challenging old posts I’ve made critical of Monsanto are also starting to come in.  Note the one here dated Jan 26th from ‘Rick’.

A discussion forum I frequently participate on also just had some visitors from Monsanto.  At least one of these visitors had actually been around for months, and out of the blue just started spewing nonsense about how good Monsanto’s seed companies were.  He did this together with someone else, so it sort of looked somehow like a legitimate conversation was taking place.

He started by giving a list of his favorite seed companies, including some many well known and trusted places like Baker Creek, Sandhill and Seed Savers Exchange, then went on to include some relatively unknown Monsanto seed companies and started promoting them.

Common Theme

Until now, all of these visits have had a common theme.  Monsanto is ‘normal’.  Each one has in some way tried to promote Monsanto as a normal seed company, and people who don’t want to grow seeds from Monsanto are somehow extreme.

These visits have included marketing slogans like ‘Most experienced gardeners trust Johnny’s.’  In particular, the theme that Johnny’s is somehow a trusted place to buy seeds seems to reoccur.  Any blog or other place on the Internet that recommends Johnny’s Seeds is suspect as advertising for Monsanto.

The Truth

The real truth is that us bloggers have been tremendously successful at proving commercial seeds, in particular from Monsanto, have very little legitimacy in a home garden.

When you grow commercial seeds, you can’t re-save them for sharing or replanting.  In general your chance of success is often lower, and you usually don’t end up with something worth taking a picture of and posting on your blog.  There are very few serious and successful blogs out there about gardens growing commercial seeds, because they just aren’t interesting.

Of course I don’t mean to suggest gardeners who grow a few commercial hybrid seeds are doing something wrong, but these plants don’t usually end up being the ones they post and rave about.

What to Do

I’m afraid more is likely to come!  Even if we have a wave of this nonsense and it passes, it’s reasonable to assume Monsanto will keep trying.

In the short run, keep an eye out for it on your blogs and discussion forums.  I don’t do Facebook or Twitter, but those of you who do or visit similar places on the Internet, keep an eye on it there too.

If you see someone who seems to be promoting commercial seed companies in the wrong place, be sure to say something.  Be sure to mention Monsanto, and don’t accept being told that growing seeds from Monsanto is somehow normal!  If they persist, ask them about who they are and what they are doing there.  Make sure you are very clear that you think what they are saying is wrong and just nonsense.

Be sure and talk about your experiences other places on the Internet, so the rest of us can be prepared to cope with the same thing.  By all means, please use this post as a place to leave comments on this.

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Kokopelli Seeds of France, who last year was fined more than €17.000 for selling ‘illegal’ seeds, is involved in a new legal conflict.  Baumaux, the same company that instigated the previous legal action against Kokopelli Seeds has now registered the ownership of the name Kokopelli and is selling a new variety of tomato with it.

Baumaux is not stopping there however, they are also demanding Kokopelli Seed cease and desist in their use of the name Kokopelli and all business activities associated with it.  They are also demanding a payment of €100.000 in compensation for use of the name to date.

The original French language story is here, and a Google translated version here.

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