ISSUE 38, SEED SAVING, Part 1: Principles of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation
Seed Saving, Seed Prospecting, & Seed Seeking
In the quest to promote a rich biodiversity and counter the concentration of the international crop seed industry in the hands of 8 multinational agribusinesses, the consolidation of open pollinated seed for varieties of crops has depended upon several strategies—seed saving, seed prospecting, and seed seeking. These are different approaches to keeping a range of crop seed generally available for a cultivator to use and select for repeated plantings.
Most of us know about seed saving—the preservation of an existing strain by retaining a portion of the seed produced by an open pollinated crop. It is not a simple or straightforward process. It entails selection of seed from those mature plants of the target crop that most approximate your desired vision of the plant (Earliest maturing? Healthiest? Tastiest? Most Productive? Largest fruiting?). It means storing seed in a manner that will insure its viability. It means sharing seed with others so that there will be more than one line in existence. It means planting the seed in such a way as to keep it from cross fertilization, so the traits are preserved. It sometimes means pollination with a form of the plant that will insure the strain’s robustness and viability. Nowadays, it means farming or gardening outside the commercial hegemony of the 6 multinational ag companies that monopolize the world of field crop and garden seed.
Fortunately a healthy number of growers engage in seed saving. Furthermore governmental and university germ plasm banks, organizations such as the Seed Saver’s Exchange, and heirloom seed companies provide support for those who would grow landrace and open pollinated plants.
Seed saving presumes the survival of a given plant variety and the recognition of its quality. Sometimes it entails a kind of serendipity: a beloved family bean is found when Aunt Mary’s freezer is cleared out; a fruit finder visits an old farmstead seeking old cider apples. These are the usual approaches to seed saving.
Sometimes the needs of a region are not served by what had once been grown on the landscape or items in the Native ecology. For instance in the 1890s the upper Midwest needed a cold tolerant cover crop that could be used as forage for cattle and horses. In 1897 the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture dispatched Prof. Niels Hansen to Asia as a plant hunter. He crossed central Asia on foot and horseback following the 45 degrees North latitude line seeking alfalfa lines and clover. He scoured Finland and Lapland looking for forage crops; then the cold northern island of Hokaido in Japan. He found numbers of cold tolerant forage crops that would become central to agriculture in Canada and the Dakotas. The sort of activity in which Hansen engaged was plant prospecting. From time immemorial curious growers traveled to foreign lands seeking fruits, grains, and vegetables to supplement the limited store in one’s home locale. Records of plant hunting by Chinese, Indian, North African, European, and Middle Eastern explorers survive from before the modern era. Since the rise of global exploration and imperial colonization in 1500s, plant hunting has been state sponsored or endorsed. With the rise of the oceanic trade routes, seed exchange became a matter of course.
The Carolina Gold Rice Foundation performs seed saving. But it is distinctive in that it pursues a distinctive approach not widely followed by the community that cherishes agricultural and culinary heritage. It performs seed seeking.
First we research a region’s culinary and agricultural past, seeking the durable elements upon which a historic food system was built. We understand both the table and the farm. We understand that only the long-cultivation of an item is the hallmark of (a) its aesthetic value as food, (b) its economic value in a marketplace, and (c) its versatility of functions on a farm. Many of the enduring items that made up a regions agways and foodways may no longer be cultivated. Such was the case with the Lowcountry rice-centered world. When the CRG Foundation began its restorations over a decade ago, only okra and collards of the tradition crops remained with historic integrity. We had a long list of plants that used to be. We went searching them, knowing that sometimes names changed, but functions remained stable and form remained for the most part similar. In the intervening years we had great luck restoring these items. Some were found neglected in seed banks. Others were found surviving on farms with long family histories. Some were found in other parts of the world. Some were sent our way by cultivators who had hear of our quest. Some we back bred into existence.
We started with a rather detailed picture of the original agriculture and horticulture of the region, and in ten years found much that was crucial. There remain, however, certain things that have never surfaced: the palmetto asparagus, the Neunan’s Prolific Strawberry, the Noisette Strawberry, the Hoffman’s Seedling Strawberry, the Amelia Peach, Oomseeana Imphee Sorghum, Maiden’s Delight Corn, Southern Tall Growing White Mountain Rye, the Bachman Pear, Buncombe Cabbage.