Seed savers need to learn a little about how plants produce seeds and how they are classified. With this knowledge, you will find that you make fewer mistakes when trying to grow plants for seeds. It isn’t necessary to know a great deal about the science of botany, however, and the fundamentals are fairly easy to understand.

The Sex Life of Plants

Plants produce seeds by sexual reproduction. All flowering plants will have male and female parts, either on the same plant or different plants of the same species. The male parts are called stamens, and include a pollen producing sac called an anther and a filament to support it. The female part is called a pistil, composed of the ovary at the base, a tube coming out of the ovary called a style, and a pollen-receptor called a stigma, on the top of the style. These parts can look very different in different types of plants; for example in corn, each strand of silk is the stigma and style, while the male parts are at the top of the plant, and called the tassel.

Pollen produced in the anthers is transferred by various ways, depending on the type of plant, to the stigma, which is often sticky. When fertile pollen hits the stigma, it sends down a pollen tube to the waiting ovary and fertilization is accomplished. Then a seed begins to form.

Pollination depends on wind for grasses (grains), several kinds of nuts, corn, and other plants whose flowers are drab and unobtrusive. Plants with brightly coloured flowers are pollinated by insects, birds, and other animals. A few types of plants, like tomatoes and beans, are self-pollinating.

Many flowers are “perfect”, with male and female parts in the same flower; examples are tomatoes and cherry blossoms. Other plants have male flowers and female flowers on the same plant, but these look different (“imperfect” flowers); squash, cucumber and melons are examples. Still other plants have male flowers on one plant and female flowers on a different plant; spinach and asparagus are examples.

Cross-pollination

A hybrid plant results from pollen from one variety getting on the stigma of another variety, either deliberately or accidentally. Anyone saving seeds will have to learn which plants cross-pollinate easily (hybridize), which ones may cross depending on circumstances, and which ones generally do not because they are self-pollinating. If you want to have seeds whose progeny look and taste like the parent plants, cross-pollination must be avoided. We will get into details of these plants in future blogs.

“Open-pollinated” means that seeds you harvest will produce vegetables that are like the ones on the parent plant. Many open-pollinated varieties are heirloom or heritage types. These have been passed down from generation to generation, especially in European countries, and were generally of limited availability until recently. But not all open-pollinated varieties are heirlooms.

Hybrid fruits and vegetables are perfectly fine to grow if you don’t care about saving seeds. Most commercial hybrid fruit and vegetables were developed to provide better disease resistance, uniformity, vigour, and consistent high yields. By developing named hybrid varieties, plant breeders can control intellectual property rights for their seeds.

Hybrid seeds are produced commercially either by hand methods or genetic methods. The hand-pollinated method is labour-intensive, and involves removing the male part of each flower and transferring pollen from a different variety. This technique is largely done in Asian countries, Chile and Mexico. Most of the hybrid seeds of tomato, peppers, and melons are derived from hand-pollination. The genetic-controlled hybrids are derived from plants that are bred to be self-incompatible or have male sterility. This method is largely done in developed countries, and includes brassicas, onions, carrots, and beets. These are not genetically engineered plants, but ones developed from selective breeding.

Plant Classification

One of the best ways to prevent cross-pollination is to understand which plants are related to the other plants you are growing. Plants that are not related to each other will not hybridize.

Plants are classified according to their relationships with other plants. A large grouping of related plants is called a Family. There are eight major vegetable families, plus a few others not widely grown. Grasses and most herbs have different families.

As an example, the family Brassicaceae contains familiar plants like cabbage, radish, and kale. Members of this family are broken down into smaller units, called genera (singular genus). For example, cabbage, broccoli, kale, and turnip all belong to the genus Brassica, while radish belongs to the genus Raphanus. Then, under each genus are even more closely related types, called species. So, for Brassica, there is for example, Brassica oleracea (Broccoli) and Brassica rapa (Chinese cabbage).

You will be able to learn quickly which plants might be related, just by looking at them. Onions, tomatoes, beets, bok choy, and corn all have different leaf structures and growth habits. They are in different families of plants. Plants in one family will never cross-pollinate with plants in another family, while plants in the same genus might, although unlikely. And of course, varieties within the same species will hybridize easily.

In another blog, we will discuss how many plants of each species should be grown for good seed production, as well as the distance various species should be separated to make sure your seeds “come true”, that is, produce vegetables that are like the parent plant.

Resources
Ashworth, Suzanne. 2002. Seed to Seed, 2nd Edition. Seed Savers Exchange, Decorah, Iowa, USA.
Campbell, N.A., J.B. Reese, and L.G. Mitchell. 1999. Biology. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., Menlo Park, CA.
Tay, David. Vegetable Hybrid Seed Production: http://www.seedconsortium.org/PUC/pdf%20files/23-vegetable%20Hybrid%20Seed%20Production.pdf

There are so many reasons to save seeds it’s hard to list them all. But the main reasons are that 1) commercial seeds may not grow well in our soils and climate, especially as the climate changes, 2) diversity in plants available for food production is decreasing markedly, 3) multi-national agribusinesses have bought out most of the large seed companies in the United States and Canada, 4) except for organic varieties, pesticides are used extensively in growing seed crops for market, 5) commercial seeds must be shipped in from long distances, and 6) it’s not very interesting just to buy seeds from catalogs, not to mention the expense. If we all start saving seeds we can:

1. Have seeds adapted to our climate. You have probably bought commercial seeds and found they didn’t grow very well, in spite of lots of water, nutrients, and TLC. Yet, you may have observed that when seeds escaped your notice and fell on the ground, they grew beautifully the next year as “volunteers.” This is because each seed contains genetic variability. The ones most suited to their growing conditions will germinate and thrive, while those less suited will not. If you were to purposely save seeds and grow them every year, you would have selected the type happiest in your growing conditions. The result is a “landrace” – a variety developed by natural processes rather than selective breeding. This will be increasingly important as the climate changes.

2. Have a diverse collection of seeds in case of ecological and human-caused disasters. Most experts agree that we must preserve biodiversity in food varieties. The number of commercially available varieties is decreasing. A main reason for this is the world-wide tendency in agriculture toward ecological and genetic uniformity of commercial crops. To be able to adapt to threats to human populations, we must have many types of non-hybrid seeds so that new varieties can be developed. Most offerings in seed company catalogs are hybrids, that is, from plants whose flowers have been pollinated by another variety. These seeds generally shouldn’t be saved because new plants from these are likely to be inferior to the hybrid one. Big seed companies like to sell hybrids, since farmers and gardeners have to buy them every year.

3. Don’t contribute to multinational business profits. In 2005, Monsanto bought out a large fruit and vegetable seed company called Seminis. This company had dozens of seed companies under it, and with this purchase, Monsanto has become the world’s largest seed producer. Even if a Canadian seed company is not under the Seminis (Monsanto) umbrella, many of the larger retail seed companies buy seed for resale from them. Seminis has now opened a new facility in Ontario to supply greenhouse growers. Seemingly, Monsanto’s motive for buying this company, in spite of its debts, was that they are aware of the growing needs of consumers to eat healthier food. But selling vegetable seeds, even organic ones, is unlikely to be enough to boost profits for Monsanto. There is speculation that it intends to use biotechnology to produce seeds for food, and in fact they have already developed a genetically modified lettuce variety for commercial farms. Unfortunately, with profit the only motivation, varieties that don’t sell well will disappear.

4. Have organically grown seeds. Any grower who intends to become certified organic must use organically produced seeds. Even if you don’t intend to be certified, organic growers need to save their own seeds for replanting. Conventional production of seed crops requires copious amounts of pesticides and fertilizer, because the crop has to stay in the field longer. Otherwise plant diseases and pests could damage the crop during this time, reducing yield.

5. Use less fossil fuel. Although the cost of shipping seeds and other plant products wouldn’t use much fuel compared with shipping other commodities, we believe that locally grown seeds are part of having local food. Conventional farming, including growing plants for seeds, uses fuel to manage and harvest the crop; natural gas is the basis for nitrogen in commercial fertilizers.

6. Saving seed can save you a lot of money and is very rewarding. The price of commercial seed in bags or packets seems to increase every year, and the number of seeds in them decreases. As well, you don’t know how long these have been in storage at the distribution centre or your local retailer. It is very frustrating when seeds don’t germinate because they are too old. If you grow your own, you will know exactly how old they are. Growing food from seeds that have been passed down from generations – your own or others – is very rewarding. You know you are contributing to the gardening future of new generations as well as helping to save heirloom varieties. When you hold seeds in your hands that you have grown yourself, you are holding a bit of history. And, when those seeds come up in your garden, you will have completed a circle of life.

RESOURCES
http://www.seedalliance.org/Seed_News/SeminisMonsanto/
http://www.primalseeds.org/whysaveseed.htm
http://howtosaveseeds.com/whysave.php

Ashworth, Suzanne. 2002. Seed to Seed, 2nd Edition. Seed Savers Exchange, Decorah, Iowa, USA.

Turner, Carole B. 1998. Seed Sowing and Saving. Storey Communications, Inc. Pownal, Vermont, USA.

Submitted by Patricia Huet

The Creston Valley Food Action Coalition (CVFAC) and the Kootenay Local Agricultural Society (KLAS) have embarked on a program to save vegetable, grain, and herb seeds in the Kootenays. We believe that saving seeds is an essential part of growing, eating, and sharing local food. If you decide to do this, you will be carrying on a very long tradition of saving seeds, and at the same time you will save money and know exactly how your seed plants were grown. Besides that, it is simply fun to do!

Eventually, we intend to design a seed crop strategy for the Kootenays so that we can have a variety of seeds that would provide a diverse range of good local food. This way, we can still have food even when world disorder, climate change, economic downturns, and other factors inhibit our ability to import food to our region. In the meantime, we have set up a Seed Registry for seed growers. This is a very simple process – you simply fill out a form stating the varieties of seeds you have grown, for how long, and your name and contact information. Then just send it in to KLAS or CVFAC.

During 2012, we will be posting a series of blogs on this website. They will cover topics such as: why we should save seeds, how plants produce seeds, a run-down of the types of plants you can grow to get seeds from, and things like harvesting, cleaning, and storing seeds. We hope you will get the “seed saving bug” and join us!

Submitted by Patricia Huet