Hello!

With all the interest in stocking up and being prepared for disasters, I wondered if anyone caught the story on 60 Minutes this weekend about the Doomsday Vault in Norway and all the seeds that are stored there?  The link is

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

Apparently they are being stored in the event a meteor hits the earth or other such disaster.  They also talked about the many thousands of varieties of wheat and apples that once existed.  I was very impressed with the story, as it is a large scale of what we all are doing on a small scale in our own homes and communities.

Do any of you have old varieties of fruits/vegetables or sources for seeds?

Lynnea the Dogmom

I'm about to leave work but wanted to comment quickly and say that I saw the show. It was VERY interesting.

  Biodiversity in planting crops is a very necessary program for the quality of the food available to all in this world.

This program is very much of a necessity as the variety of native and naturally grown foods has been severely decreased due to hybridization and selective planting. Agribusiness for many years have only been planting selected, specialized, hybridized foods crops, what grows the cheapest and sells the best in markets. Think about how many apples you see in a store; not too many varieties and the most prevalent are Red Delicious, because they are one of the biggest and shiniest apples that can be displayed. They don't taste very good, in my opinion. In the 1800's this country produced hundreds of varieties of apples,many of which have disappeared because they were no longer grown and stores would not sell them.   

  These hybrids do not have the genetics to withstand the plant diseases that the old non-hybridized foods with the tougher DNA do. The hybrids are pampered with special fertilizers and sprays to produce a major crop, that left on their own would never produce as much of a yield if they in fact could reproduce.  

 With only one or 2 strains of any kind of food being grown, those one or 2 types are highly susceptible to blight and virus that could totally wipe them out. Then if that was all there was being grown, there would be nothing. Think if that was done with wheat. If world wide the only wheat crop grown was one kind, and a virus wiped it out, there would be no more wheat.

In Irish history, they had the potato famine. Potatoes were a major food crop for Ireland, in many cases the only food crop. A blight hit that turned all the potatoes in the ground to a black goo, and many Irish starved to death. Those that could came to the US.

If everyone could grow as much of their own food and used heirloom plants to do it, it could go along way in bringing back the hardier foods that our ancestors grew up with and expand the diversity of what is available in crops.

Edey

I couldn't have said it better E.

I've heard of that before.

My only good source of old varieties currently is Heirloom Seeds. You can save their seeds year to year because none are hybrids. They are on the web.

I'm growing heirloom tomatoes this year, along with other well known kinds of tomatoes, and keeping a journal to track how well they do. I'm looking forward to taste the heirloom. I love a good tart tomato.

Another practice that I think is wrong in the realm of growing food is good farm land being sold to developers that cover it with housing or businesses. Some states have made laws that farm land must remain farm land, can only be used for farming and not divided up below a certain amount of acreage, putting a stop to the loss of good fertile land being covered with buildings. But in California there doesn't appear to be any laws like this, and many prime growing areas have been covered over, and those same covered over areas now have surplus housing lost to foreclosure or unsold tracts. There is plenty of marginal land that could be built on without taking good farm land for surplus McMansions to be built on.

 The land became taxed beyond the ability of the farmer to make a living, and the only way out was to sell. Government didn't want to give up the prospect of hundreds of thousands more in tax revenues from housing or businesses being built, so didn't do anything to help out the farmer to keep his land in production, and keep his taxes low to make a decent income from his land, which in turn would have allowed for lower food costs.

Farming is not a livelihood that leads to the instant gratification or wealth that most people expect to receive now in their young adult years. New orchards planted can take several years before seeing any income from their production. It is hard work and not many are willing to want to work that hard. It is easier to sit in that office building on top of the farm land and make money than it is to sit on a tractor seat plowing dirt. I don't say it is right, but it is what has happened.

Edey 

Here are 2 sources for more info on different  seed programs. Edey

http://www.heirloomseeds.com/

 http://www.seedsavers.org/

 One of my favorite sources for OP( open pollenated seeds) is Bountiful Gardens.com   and their sister site EcologyAction.com   I'm trying to find a nice wheat to grow but this area is difficult- only spring soft white wheat is successfully produced.   I believe NIchols.com also has some seeds designated as open pollenated.