Its February, so it must be seed swap time again!
Seed swaps have been growing in popularity for some years now. The best known one in Britain is Brighton's Seedy Sunday.
The occasions are a justification for a get-together for gardeners aside from other things, and since gardening often is a fairly solitary activity, this seems a jolly good notion. Frequently the seed swap is merely a peg which to hang the function, with most attention and energy allocated to going to discussions, eating, networking, buying products from stalls etc.
But how about the thought of the seed swap itself?
Simply the idea is the fact you save seed from a good variety and then offer it up and provide it to other folks, which means you are showing your good variety. But why do that when the number of seed available commercially is so excellent?
Promotors of seed swaps prefer to portray themselves as keepers of hereditary variety, safeguarding old kinds from extinction and keeping that variety going for another era. Commercial seed manufacturers are usually cast as brokers of wicked firms which want to limit the number of that which we grow, to allow them to monopolise it. Particular venom is reserved for F1 seed kinds, that will not breed true and are therefore 'one use only'.
Seed swaps have a tendency to focus on vegetable varieties. Considering that this epic selection of vegetable seed is currently available commercially, whereas the number of ornamentals: annuals, perennials etc, has actually absent into decline, I'd be more more likely to see myself browsing a seed swap to get interesting ornamental types. The emphasis, and the undoubted moral ardour is however quite definitely on the veg, so that is exactly what I'll focus on.
Sorry to put cool water on what appears like such a good notion, but I'd be quite apprehensive about getting my seed from a seed swap myself. Here's why.
Is it what's says on the packet?
With all the best will on the planet, it's very easy to muddle seed up. I've just been educated with a correspondent that DEFRA (the English government office for agriculture and the surroundings) recently performed a review of online seed resources, and 60% was the incorrect kinds, i.e. not merely another variety of carrot, but beetroot instead!
How has it been retained?
When you get a packet of commercially-produced seed, you will be 100% sure it's been gathered and stored in perfect conditions. You can't ever make certain with seed swap seed, where its been. Seed products deteriorate if conditions aren't right. Wet shed? Overheated room? This season's harvest, or previous years?
Local will not mean best.
Among the 'facts' touted across the seed swap motion is that veggie seed from locally expanded crops will be modified to local conditions and for that reason grow better. That is complete rubbish. Almost all the veg we develop have what's known as a broad ecological amplitude - they'll expand well across an enormously vast selection of conditions. The majority of us (in the united kingdom) will have recognized the way the Italian company Franchi sell their (very affordable) seed really broadly now. Does indeed this imply that their vegetable kinds can do less well here because this isn't Italy? No. And perhaps the varieties will be the same anyway.
Even if veg seed could meaningfully progress towards being better designed to local conditions this might take many decades to achieve.
The one possible exclusions might be those veg that happen to be directly on the borderline to be viable in the neighborhood weather. Tomato or aubergine seed from anyone who has grown the crops outside at a northerly latitude is likely to be in with an opportunity, at least.
Genetic Drift
The occasions are a justification for a get-together for gardeners aside from other things, and since gardening often is a fairly solitary activity, this seems a jolly good notion. Frequently the seed swap is merely a peg which to hang the function, with most attention and energy allocated to going to discussions, eating, networking, buying products from stalls etc.
But how about the thought of the seed swap itself?
Simply the idea is the fact you save seed from a good variety and then offer it up and provide it to other folks, which means you are showing your good variety. But why do that when the number of seed available commercially is so excellent?
Promotors of seed swaps prefer to portray themselves as keepers of hereditary variety, safeguarding old kinds from extinction and keeping that variety going for another era. Commercial seed manufacturers are usually cast as brokers of wicked firms which want to limit the number of that which we grow, to allow them to monopolise it. Particular venom is reserved for F1 seed kinds, that will not breed true and are therefore 'one use only'.
Seed swaps have a tendency to focus on vegetable varieties. Considering that this epic selection of vegetable seed is currently available commercially, whereas the number of ornamentals: annuals, perennials etc, has actually absent into decline, I'd be more more likely to see myself browsing a seed swap to get interesting ornamental types. The emphasis, and the undoubted moral ardour is however quite definitely on the veg, so that is exactly what I'll focus on.
Sorry to put cool water on what appears like such a good notion, but I'd be quite apprehensive about getting my seed from a seed swap myself. Here's why.
Is it what's says on the packet?
With all the best will on the planet, it's very easy to muddle seed up. I've just been educated with a correspondent that DEFRA (the English government office for agriculture and the surroundings) recently performed a review of online seed resources, and 60% was the incorrect kinds, i.e. not merely another variety of carrot, but beetroot instead!
How has it been retained?
When you get a packet of commercially-produced seed, you will be 100% sure it's been gathered and stored in perfect conditions. You can't ever make certain with seed swap seed, where its been. Seed products deteriorate if conditions aren't right. Wet shed? Overheated room? This season's harvest, or previous years?
Local will not mean best.
Among the 'facts' touted across the seed swap motion is that veggie seed from locally expanded crops will be modified to local conditions and for that reason grow better. That is complete rubbish. Almost all the veg we develop have what's known as a broad ecological amplitude - they'll expand well across an enormously vast selection of conditions. The majority of us (in the united kingdom) will have recognized the way the Italian company Franchi sell their (very affordable) seed really broadly now. Does indeed this imply that their vegetable kinds can do less well here because this isn't Italy? No. And perhaps the varieties will be the same anyway.
Even if veg seed could meaningfully progress towards being better designed to local conditions this might take many decades to achieve.
The one possible exclusions might be those veg that happen to be directly on the borderline to be viable in the neighborhood weather. Tomato or aubergine seed from anyone who has grown the crops outside at a northerly latitude is likely to be in with an opportunity, at least.
Genetic Drift
Someone has a veg variety they like, so they keep the seed, and sow it again next year, and the year after that, and so on. Every year it will actually change slightly, so that after a few generations it may have lost the special characteristics it had that made it special. Commercial growers ruthlessly 'rogue' their plots of plants, removing any which do not 100% match the original. They also operate on a large scale, so minimising the distorting impact of the odd rogue plant. Anyone seed saving on a small scale will be growing a relatively small number of plants, so if you are saving from ten plants, one of which is a bit dodgy, then that'll be 10% of your seed harvest off-kilter.
When growing veg in the garden, there is a strong tendency to harvest the good plants, so saving seed from the remainder. With plants where you cannot 'have you cake and eat it', like lettuces or carrots, saving seed from one's own plants might actually mean you are consistently saving from inferior plants.
Saving varieties from extinction
Given what I have just said, the problems in maintaining a variety's integrity on an amateur basis can be pretty major, so I don't see seed saving and seed swaps as doing anything very much towards maintaining genetic diversity.
Seed companies of course maintain considerable seed diversity, but that isn't much help to anyone with a small plant breeding business . There is a very valid criticism of the seed business - that they have a monopoly, and is probably one of the reasons that we (in Europe or North America) see very little small-scale or independent vegetable seed selection and breeding. The exceptions are tomatoes and chillis, where there seems to be a very healthy market in amateur or small-scale breeder varieties. See Simpsons Seeds.
The accusation is sometimes made that all commercial veg seed breeding is for the big growers, and the amateur grower has to do with the crumbs from the table. Well, actually the demands of all growers are pretty similar: strong-growing, reliably producing crops tolerant of a wide range of conditions and pest and disease resistant. It is the latter factor which makes modern breeding so superior to 'heritage' or 'heirloom' varieties – so much breeding effort now goes into producing varieties that will stay healthy without using pesticides. This is why the statement on one seed swapping site that “It keeps seed making in the garden and out of the laboratory” is so daft. If you want to live in the Middle Ages, that's fine, but most of us would like to move on.
F1 seeds are presumably one of the 'laboratory' crops. For many of these, there is probably little point in us growing them, as their advantages are mostly for commercial growers. BUT for the latest in disease-resistant varieties, or sweet corn or courgettes for cooler climates, then there is little option – F1s maybe more expensive, but their advantages can be well worth the extra cost. The prejudice against F1s is little short of ridiculous, a sort of spill-over from the rather hysterical opposition to GM breeding, a technology which by the way has yet to show any of the ill-effects that were predicted.
Much of the discourse around the seed swap movement reflects a kind of 'small is beautiful' romanticism. There seems to be a widespread belief that evil multinational corporations are hell-bent on forcing governments to ban varieties, forcing us into a kind of vegetable totalitarianism. In reality, the range of varieties has risen dramatically over the last twenty years, partly because more mainstream commercial varieties are available to the amateur, the expansion in the range of heritage varieties available, and the increasing interest in trying varieties from other countries. Above all, we are more adventurous and are demanding and fussier consumers, so the trade in vegetable seed has inevitably reflected this. There is room for the small producer as well, the sort of place that sells obscure varieties that probably wouldn't sell well from the supermarket. For these, such as RealSeeds, we should be grateful. But if you want to see the full range of commercially-bred varieties and the opportunity to buy them in whatever quantity you want, try Moles Seeds. Better to spend your money with a proper seed merchant than risk all the unknown factors of a seed swap.Anyone selling seed commercially will generally have some sort of government certification, which in the words of one small grower, “if you buy from a registered merchant then you will get good seed, that germinates, of the variety on the packet.” So there.
And gardeners should get together to meet each other anyway, even if it only to swap seed catalogues.
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