When it comes to what food to eat and what food to avoid, things can get pretty confusing. One thing is for sure though. It can not get healthier then when grown organically in our own garden. Even if we go to great length growing our own, there are choices to be made. Starting with seed selection from catalogues and gardening centres. One choice is whether to include F1 hybrid seeds in your basket.
We have heard that we should only buy open pollinated seed and shunt F1 hybrids from our seed shopping list. Most of us however do not actually know why. Understanding how plant breeders produce their seed and what their options are can help to shed some light on this.
“Seeds are sexy things. Quite literally.”
While most decisions we make in gardening are based on how it affects our little patch of land, there is more to be considered. According to the FAO, an estimated 67% of all branded seeds are controlled by only 10 companies. If this is a bad thing? It can be, according to lobbyists, considering the fact that this means that these companies are largely in charge of what genetic plant material is available to future generations. And the FAO (2014) estimates that 75% of this plant genetic material has been lost since 1900.
Selecting sustainable seeds does not mean you compromise on your harvest.
The same source goes on to say that: “Of the 4 percent of the 250 000 to 300 000 known edible plant species, only 150 to 200 are used by humans. Only three – rice, maize and wheat – contribute nearly 60 percent of calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants.”.
By choosing to grow plants from open pollinated seeds and saving seeds at the end of the year ourselves, we play a crucial part in ensuring diversity in the plant kingdom. The plants slowly change over the years. The start to distinguish themselves from the original plants sown, and from plants selected in the same way from the same original seed in another garden somewhere. This increased diversity means that the plants we need to feed ourselves are more resilient to changes in the environment. Think climate change, the lobbyist would most likely add.
“While happily selecting away, people tapped in to the natural variety that occurs within most population of plants.”
How saving our own seeds can help create this diversity? A closer look at seeds is a first step to understanding. Seeds are sexy things. Quite literally. They are the outcome of sexual propagation of plants. Plants are not exclusive though in their partner choice and most are not very private either when it comes to their sex life. Many of them enlist the help of insects that transfer pollen from the male to the female organs. Others rely on wind or birds. And when it comes the seed that we buy from our seed catalogues or in the gardening centre, they rely on humans.
People have been interfering in the reproduction of plants since the beginning of agriculture. By selecting plants with desirable traits – for example size of the fruit – people could make quite a change over a few generations of consistent selection. And this was important: a good harvest could mean survival for another year. While happily selecting away, people tapped in to the natural variety that occurs within most populations of plants.
The very fact that you can select for bigger fruit among plants means hat there must be an initial variety between them. Plants that have such naturally occurring variety within their population are called heterozygous. Heterozygous plants mainly include perennial plants that prefer to outbreed. They pollinate other heterozygous plants usually from their own species.
Some plants on the other hand are inbreeders and prefer to cross with themselves or with plants that look the same as they do. When these rather narcissistic plants – and their offspring – have all their traits in common, they are called homozygous. Great if they are perfectly adapted to their environment. What happens however if something changes in their surroundings? If one of them can not survive this new environment because of its traits, then it is very likely that non of its family member can.
“Crossing two previously inbred lines of plants often results in a next generation with significant improvements.”
So is the variation in heterozygousity always better? Seed sellers, farmer and also some gardeners do not necessarily like this kind of variety. Uniformity means predictability, being able to harvest an entire crop in one go and it means that you can ensure that customers get what they expect.
Besides seeds that are genetically more or less uniform, plant breeders also use a biological principal called hybrid vigour. It is well known, but not well understood, that crossing two previously inbred lines of plants often results in a next generation with significant improvements. Think larger flowers, better resistance to disease or earlier cropping. So what is the problem?
Open pollinated seeds mean that plants can evolve to cope with environmental changes. Choosing them over F1 hybrid seeds ensures a diversity of plants for future generations.
One problem is that this vigour only lasts when the same inbred parent plants are crossed over and over again. Second generations actually do not come true. In other words they will not look anything like their parent. Second generations can even show a depression in the vigour. So we have to buy the first generation of seed from the same parent plants over and over, year after year. And doing so we are relying on the seed companies. With these companies only producing a relatively small range of species and varieties, heterozygous propagation is lost and with it, the ability for plants to adapt to their environment.
Luckily for us, it is easy to chose open pollinated seeds. There is plenty of great choice in seed cataolgues. And we can try to save the seeds ourselves at the end of the year if we want. Swapping seeds with neighbours or people with similar growing conditions is fun, and there are many seed swapping initiatives out there. There is a chance that the seeds are not viable because of poor pollination that year, pollination from wild species or poor collection and storage. Yet most of the seeds will be viable. What better way to take a small gamble. It is what we have been doing over centuries. So why stop now?
What you can do:
When selecting your seeds this year, consider seed producing companies that use open pollination where you can. Or go to a seed swap initiative in your area.
FLAD horticulture 