Meet this week’s vegetables:
As September arrived this week (where did it come from? Ack!), we’ve been reveling in the continued delicious late summer harvests. We love having beautiful summer fruits to give out to the CSA and sell at market. Not only are they sweet and delicious, they are aesthetically pleasing too. Yellow peppers, purple eggplant and red tomatoes certainly add wonderful color and texture diversity to our generally green market stand.
They have been a source of some interesting, but all too brief, conversations at market as well. We advertise some of our tomatoes in our stand as ‘heirloom’ varieties (we’ve also used this term in the newsletter). We note this at market primarily to distinguish our funny looking tomatoes from the standard red slicers. The label helps explains the range of colors, sizes and shapes (some folks have never seen a pink or yellow tomato before). In this way, it’s a useful distinction to make in our display.
However, it also begs the question, what exactly does ‘heirloom’ mean? And, if one basket of tomatoes are ‘heirlooms,’ then what are the others? This question became particularly important to me when a customer asked me to verify that the tomato he was buying was an heirloom. To clarify, he asked, “Does it have ‘genetic integrity’”?
‘Genetic integrity’ isn’t a term I had heard before in this context, but I realized that he might have been confusing several different kinds of seed production. And I’m not surprised that he might be confused since growers, chefs and veggie sellers like us throw around terms like ‘heirloom’ and ‘organic’ in the same conversations that others are also talking about ‘GM’ (genetically modified) foods. There are a lot of labels to understand, especially when different folks might be using them for different purposes. Since you all trust us to make good decisions about how we grow food, we want you to know and understand why we choose the kinds of seeds we do. I’d like to finish that two minute conversation with the tomato buyer at market by explaining briefly the most common and relevant vegetable seed categories and labels:
‘Heirloom’—This term refers to varieties of seeds that have been maintained by amateur gardeners over several generations. They often offer tastes, colors and textures that may be uncommon in mainstream commercial vegetable varieties. To many heirloom lovers, they represent genetic diversity. We grow several heirloom tomato varieties for the complex flavors and colors they offer. However, heirlooms also haven’t been ‘bred’ or ‘selected’ primarily for commercial viability. Therefore they often have lower yields, fewer disease resistances, and are less predictable or consistent.
‘Selected’—This is a label you see used less frequently, since it is a fairly broad unspecific term for varieties of seeds that have been ‘selected’ particularly for commercially-useful traits such as high yields, disease resistance, marketability, etc. This important work of ‘selection’ is usually done in a university setting or by professional seed growers. The majority of the seeds we grow at Oakhill Organics are commercially developed varieties such as these.
‘Open-pollinated’—These are vegetable varieties that can be grown directly from their own seed (which means that a grower could save their own seed). All heirlooms are open-pollinated and so are many commercially selected varieties. On our farm, all of our lettuces and many of our pumpkins, kale, radish, and pea varieties are open-pollinated (to name just a few).
‘Hybrid’—This is where labels get a bit more complicated, and unfortunately often misunderstood. In a world of genetic modification, the term ‘hybrid’ often inappropriately conjures up images of gene splicing and laboratory glassware. While hybrids do involve the ‘mixing’ of genes, the process has no similarities to gene splicing or genetic modification. As one of our favorite authors Barbara Kingsolver says, the difference is ‘that old black magic called sex.’
A ‘hybrid’ vegetable is the natural product of intentional reproduction between two distinct varieties—to make it a seed grower (or a pollinator insect) literally rubs pollen from one onto the other (no lab coats or bubbling tubes). The goal is for each parent plant to bring something commercially important to the mix. For example, we grow many hybrid tomatoes, which are the offspring of a wild more vigorous variety and another that has a super sweet flavor but no disease resistance. The result is a commercially wonderful tomato: sweet flavor and disease resistance.
Many vegetables are almost impossible to grow well except through the use of hybrids. I can almost guarantee that any cabbage and broccoli you’ve ever purchased at a store was grown from hybrid seed since hybrids grow significantly better versions of these things than open-pollinated versions.
The downside: the hybrid process has to happen every year since seeds saved from hybrids won’t recreate exactly the same tomato (because they contain the diverse genetic information from both original varieties). There are critics of hybrids for this reason—that farmers can’t save their own seeds. From our perspective, we’d rather leave seed production up to the experts. Seeds are so small and one plant can produce so many that it doesn’t make sense for every farmer to be producing them (they’d quickly end up with an excess and have to start a seed company themselves).
Another criticism of hybrids is that they are commercially streamlined and don’t have the potential diversity of heirlooms. To us, this point can quickly be addressed by counting the amount of hybrid cabbages in one of our catalogs (47) with the number of open-pollinated in another (2). Which category of cabbages seems more diverse based on those numbers?
The preservation of both kinds of seeds line is crucial, but we favor hybrids for many of our veggies for good reason. As organic growers, variety choice (and particularly disease resistance) is our first line of defense against disease and pests. Plant vigor is also important since we don’t use strong chemical fertilizers to boost our yields and size. Hybrids offer much more in both of these areas, so they are essential in our organic growing plan. We don’t have to choose between reliance on chemical inputs and good yields.
‘GM or Genetically Modified’—These are plants whose seeds have been altered directly on the genetic level, in a lab. GM seeds are dangerous for many reasons, primarily because they exclude the natural processes involved in sexual reproduction and produce unknown results (some of which may have very scary impacts on ecosystems). This is a complex issue that can’t be fully discussed here, but suffice to say that we use absolutely no GM seeds on our farm. (For a great essay on this topic, we recommend ‘A Fist in the Eye of God’ by Barbara Kingsolver, published in Small Wonder.)
‘Organic’—This final label is one that you probably don’t see as much in reference to seeds (unless you are a gardener). Until recently, most seed was produced conventionally so organic growers necessarily used conventionally grown seeds. The USDA organic standards, however, mandate that organic growers use organically grown seed whenever it is commercially available.
The production of organic seeds has increased every year to meet this new need, which is a wonderful way to bring organic processes into every step of the agricultural loop. But there are still limited options. For example, almost all of our lettuces and specialty greens are organic (we buy most of them from Wild Garden Seed, a seed company close by in Philomath, Oregon), but only one of our seven hybrid cabbage varieties is organic this year. This season 38% of our seed varieties were produced organically. Fortunately more seed producers are realizing the need for quality organic varieties, so we expect that percentage to rise each year. (We are also making our own effort to try new varieties that are organic each year as well.) (Another good source for organically grown seeds: High Mowing Seeds.)
That might be more than you ever wanted to know about seeds, but it’s something that’s been on our mind lately as we begin making our variety lists for next year. We welcome more conversation about these important issues, especially any remaining questions about the significance of hybrid seeds. I’m still not sure whether any of our vegetables can claim ‘genetic integrity’ since I’m not certain what that phrase meant to the asker. But I’d say no, because ‘integrity’ to me implies perfect consistency and uniformity. Instead, I see all our vegetables as amazing bundles of diversity: in terms of flavors, colors, attributes, etc. If you ever doubt that, please just take a walk through our fields.
As always, enjoy the vegetables. (And all their diverse flavors!)
Your farmers,
Katie & Casey Kulla
Oakhill Organics
