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Episode-2807- Saving Seed and Developing Your Own Varieties

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:29 — 15.4MB)

Today I want to discuss a skill we have not dug into for quite a while.  That is seed saving and I also want to talk a bit about seed storage, trading seed and the value of regionally adapted seeds.

There is also a ton of confusion in the seed marketplace today about exactly what a GMO is, what a hybrid is and what an “heirloom” seed is. Without an understanding of this you are vulnerable to a lot of misinformation campaigns designed to sell you things you don’t need or keep you from using some seeds that may really be beneficial to you.

For instance some hybrids may be resistant to a disease that is rampant in your region or allow you to get an earlier start in a region with a short growing season. Additionally you do want to avoid GMOs and GMO containing foods whenever you can but the risk to seeds used by home gardeners at this time is greatly over exaggerated by those with something to sell you.

Join me today as we discuss…

  • Understanding Seed Storage and Seed Types
    • What is a GMO vs. what is a hybrid
    • What is an heirloom vs. what is an open pollinated variety
    • How almost every heirloom or open pollinated seed started as a “hybrid”
    • Why we should be making our own hybrids and proving them out as well
    • What is the purpose of a seed bank, what are the positives and negatives
    • Do seeds ever “go bad” or is it not quite that simple
    • What are the enemies to a seeds vitality, what makes for good storage
    • What is a land race and why should you care
  • The story of how seeds propagate in the wild
    • They are exposed to the elements
    • They are not “planted”
    • They must compete with other plants
    • They often are “stored” in the soil for decades before they are triggered to germinate
  • Saving You Own Seeds
    • Selecting seeds for saving based characteristics
    • Selecting first for survival
    • Separation distances and cross pollination (how important is it, it depends)
    • Succession planting to avoid cross pollination/hybrid crossing
    • Manual pollination and isolation to ensure purity
    • Why no seed can ever be as good as “local seed” but any seed can become local
  • Building Personal Seed Vaults
    • Remember the enemies of seed storage (light, heat, moisture)
    • Oxygen free is NOT the way to be
    • Ziplock vs. mylar vs. containers vs. envelopes
    • Consider how long you really need to store seeds
    • Remember some seeds are food and some food is seed
    • Buying seeds is a good investment
    • Trading is another great way to add stock and diversity (local rocks)
  • Final Thoughts – What is the value of 10 seeds?

 

Resources for today’s show…

 

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Comments

Episode-2807- Saving Seed and Developing Your Own Varieties — 9 Comments

  1. Hi Jack! I’m in the Columbia Valley in BC — been here for just over one year. Apparently Monsanto paid a whole bunch of property owners to plant grains on their land … some still do maybe. What degradation would that have on the surrounding area, if any? I don’t think my property had been used as there’s no fields that would be appropriate but the neighbour does. Thank you for your extremely valuable knowledge & insight!!! I appreciate it!

    • Unless you are directly in the water run off or a farm spraying or trying to grow organic grain that could cross pollinate I would not even worry about it personally. As to the larger environmental damage it is huge but a much as I hate GMOs it is the plow that does the most damage.

  2. I haven’t listened in a while, hi Jack! I assume your a multi millionaire if you held any crypto, I wasn’t smart enough to. I have seen oath keepers in the news a lot lately, any thoughts?

    • Oathkeepers is dead to me, has been for ages. http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/feedback-6-16-15 When the tin hat nonsense starts it ruins any organization. Sad as I was a founding member. But not only did Stewart hype Jade Helm in opposition to thousands of members saying it was a horrible play, once it was over and NOTHING happened he never accepted responsibility for lying about it. Nor for the thousands of active members who left due to it. This is what happens when you throw in with the Alex Jones crowd.

      • The problem with good Propaganda is it always has too much truth in it AND it is repeated too often …

        Just look at all the people who repost on twitter and facebook …

        • I should have added the entire chapter of Oathkeepers Pennsylvania basically seceeded from the mother organization over the same issue.

  3. Plant vegetable plants among your flowerbeds and in inconspicuous areas. There will come a time when you were glad you did.

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