As the crowd at the Western Massachusetts Master Gardeners’ Association Spring Symposium settled into the auditorium at Frontier Regional High School in South Deerfield last Saturday to hear Margaret Roach’s keynote address, bowls of multicolored seeds were passed from row to row. “Take a seed and get out your cellphone,” said Roach, an acclaimed writer and gardener from the Hudson Valley. Although the audience was filled with gardening enthusiasts, I think it’s fair to say that most of us did not know where Roach was going with this request.
“I’m going to show you that the seed you’re holding is more powerful than the technology in your cellphone,” she said. “And, believe it or not, the seed is more important to your life than your cellphone.” (Roach, ever humble, credited seed-saving pioneer Bill McDorman with originating this proposition.) Seeds are live embryos, she explained. They have the power to reproduce and reproduce infinitely. They provide energy, nourishment, shelter and everything else we need to survive. Can your cellphone do that?
Considering how fundamental seeds are to our lives, said Roach, it’s surprising how little most of us know about where our seed comes from. She noted that when we go to one of our local farmers markets, “we always ask about the sources of the pork, or honey, or cheese, or Brussels sprouts we buy. But nobody asks where the seed we buy comes from.”
In her engaging talk, Roach made clear that all seeds are not created equal. She began with a brief history of the seed business. Up until the past 30 years or so, she explained, seeds were produced and marketed by hundreds of small companies across the country. With the rise of agribusiness, a few large companies took over seed production and vastly reduced the genetic diversity of commercial seed.
“When you buy a packet of seeds, don’t assume that it comes from the return address on the packet,” she said. Most commercially sold seed comes from places like Mexico and China, where seed can be produced cheaply and non-organically. And those seeds are poorly adapted to organic gardens in New England.
Roach explained that while we tend to see seeds as tiny, inert objects, they are genetically alive embryos of plants. Over the course of generations, they adapt to their environment so that they become better acclimated to their own growing situation. By way of example, she said, “If you were starting a cattle farm in northern Minnesota, you wouldn’t go to Texas to buy your herd, because Texas cattle are accustomed to warm, dry climates. They have lighter coats and a different diet and would not thrive in the harsh climate of northern Minnesota.”
Seeds are no different, said Roach. If a plant is given fertilizer and sprayed for pests over the course of many generations, the seed it produces will gradually come to expect those additives. For an organic gardener in New England, seed that’s organically produced from plants that grow in a climate like ours will grow more successfully than seed from Mexico that has become accustomed to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. She urged the audience to “ask lots of questions about where your seed comes from and who cares for it.”
Roach also discussed the nature of hybrid and heirloom seed, debunking the notion that one is necessarily superior to the other. She explained that heirloom plants came into vogue when agribusiness began producing hybrids and ignoring the enormously diverse world of open-pollinated seeds that had once been widely produced and marketed. “Open pollinated” generally refers to seeds that will “breed true.” When the plants of an open-pollinated variety self-pollinate, or are pollinated by another representative of the same variety, the resulting seeds will produce plants roughly identical to their parents.
Technically speaking, a plant variety is considered “heirloom” when it is open pollinated rather than hybrid and when it has been grown for 50 to 75 years. But those attributes don’t always make for a better product, according to Roach. If heirloom producers aren’t careful to weed out the weak plants and save seed only from the strongest plants, “genetic drift” occurs. “A Brandywine is NOT a Brandywine is NOT a Brandywine,” she said. “You need to consider who has been caring for the seed and selecting it for particular genetic traits. ‘Heirloom’ just means old, not necessarily good. The term is becoming meaningless, like ‘natural’ food.”
One encouraging bit of news Roach passed along involves GMO seed. While we should all be concerned about the spread of GMO foods, she assured us that we need not worry that seed we buy for our own use might be genetically modified. She explained that big corporations like Monsanto that produce GMO seed own the patent on that seed. They don’t sell seed to farmers, they license the right to use it for a single season. (It’s like the difference between buying a house and renting one.) “Unless you’ve entered into a contract with your seed supplier, the seed is not genetically modified,” she said.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been singing the praises of Margaret Roach and her website, awaytogarden.com. Anyone who’s interested in learning more about ecologically friendly gardening in New England should seek her out. You won’t be sorry.
Pollinator-friendly landscaping is a trend in the industry. On March 30, Annie White, a doctoral candidate from the University of Vermont Department of Plant and Soil Science, will give a talk on designing landscapes that attract a diversity of pollinators.
White will discuss some of the top perennial picks for pollinators as well as creative and effective ways to use these plants in the landscape. The talk is part of the UMass Spring Kickoff for Landscapers: Sustainable Landscapes Management Day at TownPlace Suites, 50 Rosebrook Place, Wareham.
The Amherst Winter Farmers Market will be open for two more Saturdays, this week and next.
The Northampton market will be open Saturdays through April 29. Both markets host dozens of purveyors of veggies, apples, baked goods, meats, cheeses, eggs, maple products and crafts. Don’t miss out on these wonderful local offerings.
Amherst market: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Amherst Regional Middle School, 170 Chestnut St. Northampton market: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School, 80 Locust St.
Mickey Rathbun can be reached at foxglover8@gmail.com.