“Hybrid Heirloom Awakening”

[tatermater]

I thought some of you might find a topic of this depth a conversation starter within hybridizing experiences. I find that I can't reinvent every idea that I put in writing, so forgive me for inserting this comment that I wrote in another forum.



“Hybrid Heirloom Awakening”

I am still awestruck by the topic title that Bill birthed upon the Seed Savers Forum.
I am even more awestruck that this topic with 10 members gushing forth 30 replies has also been ‘read’ or ‘hit’ 778 times at this date! This area is also identified as a hot topic within the General Gardening Community making it a busy, if not busiest of 92 subjects within one month of being on this rather new forum.

Why am I continuing to be surprised that “Hybrid Heirloom Awakening” has any gravitas here? Simple. The SSE is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving heirloom plant varieties. The organization thrives on members requesting seed from other members. The term “Hybrid Heirloom Awakening” is contrary and oxymoronic to what this group of members would predictably aspire to within the seed list published each year.

Again, why is this a hot topic? I am trying to figure out this myself.

The SSE founded in 1975 stakes its reputation on having preserved many lines of seeds; most famously being the rediscovery of the Brandywine tomato, propelling this old variety to be among the most popular heirloom or home garden tomato variety in the United States. The SSE has about 8,000 members worldwide and the thought that any of these members would have much in common with a plant breeder as myself would be near the embodiment of sacrilege; pure and simple. Any plant breeder like me making hybrids of heirlooms would normally be a violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object, in this case heirloom seeds. When I spoke before the general attendees of the July 2007 Convention, I asked if anyone would like an improved Brandywine, one that had firmer fruits, less catfacing, more disease resistance, longer shelf life, earlier maturities, all without sacrificing the classic Brandywine that they have come to enjoy and love. As I continued to speak, I mentioned my work with breeding sister lines of Brandywine that had the alphabet soup of these so-called improvements that upon crossing back to the original Brandywine creates the Hybrid Brandywine. I make these crosses all the time. I have a Brandywine type that has the potato leaves, pink fruits, large sizes, but differs mostly in that it has pink and yellow stripes. I called it differently than what the industry is calling it (Vintage Wine) but it makes a wonderful Brandywine Hybrid. These are available now for you to cross and enjoy what I promptly disclose.

I reminded them that most hybrids on the market are closed pedigrees. Large companies do not, as a rule, disclose one or both parents of a given hybrid and would not allow the seed saving public access to save their own seed of those parents with the intent of making the cross by themselves. I challenged the audience to appreciate my points, but not necessarily accept them. If a breeder as myself, also a seed saver, would offer to release assorted “Heirloom Hybrids” as seed to the public and upon the success of those hybrids, eventually releasing the parents/inbreds for the SSE members; could they, the members of this organization, accept this premise?

Blasphemy! The nerve to come forward with this form of irreverence to sacred varieties, and to make this sacrilegious offense was all me.

I don’t know how many times I would ask people if they grew Brandywine. More often than not, they would exclaim, “No, I can’t get them to do well for me here!” My idea of preserving the old germplasm is one of duality. Preserve all you want of any and all heirlooms. Just allow me to develop and release the other side of the equation. Allow me to have alternate versions of these classics with just enough improvements as to make great parents to cross back to the original seed plants. The trick will be to have workable crosses that look, taste, and otherwise perform as the classic, only better somehow. Even saving seed from these hybrids would not be all in vain. The seedlings would still be Brandywines types and a younger person than myself could eventually save seed that by a few years be another sub strain to pass down.

The SSE maintains a number of my tomato creations that link their pedigree to lines that I was growing 20 years prior to the SSE even being founded. The SSE also maintains my ancestor’s bean that was brought to this country over 120 years ago. For you to grow that bean (Suess Becker) would honor me and would perhaps remind you that I am a seed saver too!

In conclusion, this topic on the forum is one of the busiest of 92 topics. Ten outstanding members out of 208 members are posting here. It is my hope that we can invite other members to offer their thoughts on even more replies. That my talk at the SSE has generated this volume of traffic is one of pride and wonder.

Making hybrids out of “Heirlooms” is just another of way of manifesting the goodness of what was, what is, and what will be!

Tom Wagner
aka the Tater Mater

[PapaVic]

Yes, Tom, I started that thread at Seed Savers Exchange forum specifically because I am in total awe of your accomplishments over the years as well as your annual perserverance which is super human in my estimation.

Furthermore, I thought it was a very provocative subject for you to have introduced at the SSE Campout and was extremely enthused to see it covered in the Harvest Edition.

In a very very small way, I have attempted to mimic your ideas. In fact, the first tomato crosses I attempted where made with Sungold because I had seen a list you posted of your recent work a few years back. Those have gone forward both in my garden and I see that Grub is going forward with one of the crosses I sent him two years ago ... Juanne Flammee x Sungold ... even though we have lost contact with each other in the past year.

Yes, the topic is controversial, especially considering it was raised by you at an SSE event, and considering that it has gotten such "air play" at the SSE forum. You're right, it is the most viewed topic curretly on the forum boards. Hopefully, more members will participate with their thoughts. To spur that discussion, I intend in the near future to point out a few more "heirloom hybrids" that have become darlings, to some extent, among the tomato loving crowd. You point out Vintage Wine, which I think you told me on the phone a couple of years back was originally your "Brandy Stripes," or am I confused again?

I'd like to point out a few other "Brandywine" Heirloom Hybrids that went on to become open pollinated favorites, whether their origin was intentional or accidental: Brandywine OTV, the various Marizol Bradkas, Marianna's Peace, Marianna's Conflict, Little Lucky, Lucky Cross, Earl's Faux, Gary O'Sena, Purple Haze, some other of Keith Mueller's creations, etc., etc.

Heirloom Hybrids that I am currently messing with include Big Cheef (Brandywine Sudduth x Unknown RL) that came from a gardener in Murphreesboro, TN, the Juanne Flammee x Sungold which I already mentioned, Brandywine x Neves Azorean Red, which I did in 2006 and have sent out F1 and F2 seeds to various parts of the country, Indian Stripe x Sungold, which will be only F2 in 2008, Cherokee Purple x Bradley, which I did in 2007 and will try to select determinate from, Cherokee Purple PL x Novikov's Giant, and a couple of dwarf things I'm still working on from various crosses to try and get something people can grow on patios and balconies.

Next summer others and I intend to do some crossing of TSWV-resistance into tasty old heirlooms. We have spoken about this in an online chat room and heard that you and others had touched on this at Tomatoville. I feel this is of utmost importance as the TSWV plague in the Southeast is an eminent threat to all of us. I've already seen it spread into Indiana both on the windblown thrips in the southern part of the state and on bedding plants annually imported from Western Kentucky and Tennessee. This is a subject I have tried to spur conversation of in the SSE thread and hope you will discuss it further both there and here ... specifically touching on any "genetic drag" that may be associated with muting of high profile flavor that we are hopeful of incorporating from the heirloom parents in a cross.

Bill

[PapaVic]

Oh ... sometimes I am slow on the uptake ... and I FINALLY figured out your name ...

The Tater Mater <<< the mater of taters!!! hahahahahah, very clever guy you are.

Bill

[landarc]

I still do not understand the sacred nature of how people view 'heirloom' varieties. Most all of these tomatoes are, in my mind, most likely crosses, natural or engineered, just of a time long passed. It always seems to me that folks want to hold onto these tomatoes in a certain form, never to be changed. I do appreciate the idea of open pollinated tomatoes that provide distinct and preferred traits that encourage or assist gardeners in successfully growing their own vegetables. I applaud the efforts of may to create improved varieties, and quite frankly, grow many of these, over the old standards.

[Jim]

I agree completely. I think that the practical application of making crosses for improvement and discovery is great. I think GMO=bad. Splicing into the genetic code is so much different than selective breeding.

[Alan]

I was one of the folks who first commented in that thread on the SSE forum prior to being banned from the forum, I would go back and comment but I have decided that my research and developments as well as my intelectual thoughts are better served here among friends and fellow "true believers" in the ways of the past, present, and future of gardeners and plant breeders.


During my recent speaking engagements and in my recent paper that I published over at the blog site, I slightly touched on the notion of "Seed Snobs", or the idea that somehow preservation of everything in the past, much to the hinderence of the future is somehow in line with preserving the past, a notion which I find more than a bit aggrevating.

The reason I find this notion of absolute prervation of seed germplasm so trobling is that if flies in the very face and name of sustainable historic and future agricultural developments. Allbeit, genetic diversity, the saving of seeds, and the saving of diverse, rare, and endangered strains of plants and animals is indeed important work, both for the sake of history but also and EQUALLY IMPORTANT for the future breeding work of new varieties suited to regionalized and localized agriculture, beauty, performance, disease tolerance, and food production.

People often complain that heirlooms or open pollinated types don't do well for them when the truth of the mater is they havent done their research and attempted to find regionalized heirlooms or open pollinated commercial varieties. In days gone by home gardeners as well as regionalized seed companies produced seeds in the environments which they were intended to grow in and selected the best plants and fruits to save for seed to match their environmental conditions, leading to varieties that are adapted to particular environmental conditions. In other words a tomato which does well in Indiana is not going to do well in Arizona. Of course along came corporate agriculture and the modern hybrids which were said to be adaptable to all environments, but the truth is that modern day hybrids, for the most part, leave you playing a game of averages. This is to say; "This variety will do well in almost all average conditions". As opposed to tracking down a variety which is open pollinated and which was selected or bred for your conditions because the seed has been grown out and selected for those conditions over a number of years.

Now, the previous paragraph may seem to have nothing to do with this whole subject but indeed it does, because it cuts right to the very heart of "seed snobery" which is somewhat prevelant on the SSE forums and over at Tomatoville. That is the idea that these folks have to have as many varieties as they can and despite the fact that they may or may not do well for them because they are not adapted to their localities and despite the fact that the seed may not be very rare anymore (an example is Cherokee Purple tomato) it becomes absolutely sacroligious for those folks to give in to the idea that someone might take that particular tomato and it's positive traits, cross it to a different variety, and select from it a variety with the positive traits of Cherokee Purple adapted to their conditions with little to none on the negative traits associated with Cherokee Purple in it's pure form in their environment. As though the very idea of crossing a not so rare or even semi rare variety with something else for the purpose of breeding a superior and regionalized open pollinated variety is somehow unholy and will erode the idea of seed saving and heritage.

All of the above flies in the very face of what we know about agricultural history and where the very varieties that the "seed snobs" are so protective of orginally came from. As we all know plant breeding is not a new technological advantage, it has existed for as long as agrarian culture has existed at least. All the proof one needs of breeding and selection is right there in the SSE catalouge and year book as each of those precious varieties, rare or not so rare, were bred by someone to do well in a particular region or environment and over time other traits were selected out and expounded upon to further the advantageous of that variety or an all new variety from a cross and thus you have a history of diversity and the future of agriculture.

The native Americans were very advanced plant breeders, taking Maize from a basically useless small grain/weed to the forms that we find it in today which feed the masses of the world and over time they added and subtracted genes to and from forms to fit their needs as they saw them fit, this is why there is so much diversity in corn seed, diversity that isn't only preserved by keeping strains pure byt by also recombining those genes into new varieties for new reasons and locations, much like my work with Astronomy Domine, a genetically divers breeding pool that I have sent world wide and which in time will hopefully have many diverse names, divers uses, and have multiple strains each one adapted to a different climate.

In other words, the very same people trying to maintain seed of plants which were bred by others in the past are attempting to discourage modern people from breeding new plants for the future based on locality and need as though that somehow is backing up the history of seed saving when in fact it flies in the face of seed saving. To me this is what indeed makes plant breeding so interesting, the very reason you have so much diversity is because somewhere in the past someone made a cross or found a cross that was interesting and selected from that cross the variety which would do the best for their needs and came up with a new variety. The very same work that modern independent plant breeders are trying to do for the future of localized and sustainable agriculture.

Traditional plant breeding is not the enemy, GMO's are the enemy, and yet the "seed snobs" would have you believe otherwise because somehow the work of the past is far more important and perfect than expanding on that work in the name of the future.

Don't get me wrong, theres no reason to re-invent the wheel here, if you've got a variety that does well for you then add that to your seed bank and move on to varieties and traits which you need but which indeed do not do so well in your environment and expand on those varieties. Oh, and so long as the variety is in the mainstream or you are keeping a seperate and pure strain of the parent plants, what is it going to hurt to do some gene shuffling? You get something new and you loose nothing old, everyone wins.

As Kent Ettlinger said about his work with plant breeding, for every succsefull experiment he has crossing two varieties together or making seed blends there are boxes of pure seed of the parent varieties which he has maintained for posterity, indeed as he said "I stand on the shoulders of giants." Meaning that his work is based on, respectful of, and preserving the past work which has come before him.

The only thing I can figure out with respect to the so called "seed snobs" is that either A. they are not highly intelectual people and don't spend much time reflecting on how deeply that the future is imbedded in the past. B. they are completly anal and are completists in the worst sense of the word. or C. They have a need to convince themselves and others that their "preservation" work is somehow more important than any work that could come in the future in food crops and that all future breeding will pale in comparison to that done in the past despite the fact that they are growing all the wrong plants in all the wrong environments.


I happen to really enjoy and respect your idea of "heirloom hybrids" Tom and would like to see the day when the idea is expanded upon and implemented, all my support goes out to you in attracting adventerous gardeners who are truly in touch with the spirit of the past and those plant breeders who have led the way in ancient times. Those adventerous gardeners are out there, it is just a matter of finding them.

-alan

[Jim]

well said Alan.

[canadamike]

Buudy, I can't agree more. Don't get me wrong, SSE and movements with similar goals have done a fantastic job at preserving the genetic pool, and this job HAS to be done. We owe them to be able to have such a discussion today instead of talking about the ridiculous amount of genetic choice we have today in the carboard tomato market....

But we must remember that the tomato is everybody's baby, and we have access to a huge pool of what ends up being a lot of regional varieties. The tomato being what it is, there is an ever increasing pool of new varieties, piling on top of the huge list, that are made with older varieties, so the gene pool is not renewd, but recombined. Half the tomato varieties would disappear and we would not feel so much pain: the genes are elswhere.

But preserving heirlooms is more than preserving tomatoes, and many varieties of other vegetables are in great danger, very specific varieties that are part of a reduced pool and that have a lot to offer: russian melons like collective farm women for exemple, the brown-skinned cuke that keeps for months ( I forget the name) and I am sure everybody can add to that list. Veggies with more vitamins, proteins, better disease resistance etc...

It is not all the gene pools that are as rich as the tomato one and enjoy the benefits of being the ''alchemist's favorite''

The ''seed snobin' '' is something a lot of our veggies have never eard of.....LOL


Michel

[Alan]

And there you have hit the nail on the head Mike, because as you pointed out, there are very few people working to preserve the diversity of other food crops. I've noticed that Brasica crops seem to be untended for the most part and also other crops which require two years to go to seed. Also a good deal of diversity from the former Soviet Union.

Don't get me wrong, preservation is important, I just wish more people would realize that they need to and should diversify the crops they grow for preservation and maybe try to focus on regionalized preservation a bit more while also allowing the room for open minded, adventreous gardners/breeders to experiment with crossing time tested standards to come up with tomarrows "heirlooms", even if some of those heirlooms are derived from store bought F1 Hybrid seed.

There is definetly room for all of this in the self-sustainable agriculture community and has been room for this for thousands of years.

[plantsnobin]

I think there is a general tendency to romanticize the past in many areas. We want to save old buildings because of what they once were, even when it would be better to tear it down. I'm guilty of that myself. We picture Native American leaving in harmony with nature and each other, when that of course was not always the case. We think of the settlers bringing seeds and cuttings with them when heading west, when those seeds in fact were not going to be good bets in the areas they were going to. We lament 'global warming', planting the same seeds as years before, when perhaps a more heat and drought tolerant form would be more appropriate. To breed plants that will better face the conditions we currently have is the only smart thing to do. Adapt or die. It really is pretty simple.

[Alan]

Good post Karen and very true indeed. If it had not been for some amount of drought tolerance in many of my crops last year things could have really have been bad and gone downhill for Bishop's Homegrown.

[canadamike]

You are right, Karen, I want to work with Alan and others on new varieties and still grow a lot of heirlooms. Adapting it locally is so simple....reproduce whatever is tasty AND a good producer in your own garden.

I don't give a sweet f... about the Brandywine tomato, no mather how everybody romanticise it, 4 tomatoes is not a harvest to me, and I grow food to eat it, not the be part of a bunch of poetic preservers of our heritage...

Don't get me wrong, preserving it is CAPITAL, but it also has to do its job of feeding my family to be worth it...

Romantic endeavors don't feed people, and nobody is a romantic when the stomach is empty LOL!

[Jim]

canadamike said:

I don't give a sweet f... about the Brandywine tomato, no mather how everybody romanticise it, 4 tomatoes is not a harvest to me, and I grow food to eat it, not the be part of a bunch of poetic preservers of our heritage...

Don't get me wrong, preserving it is CAPITAL, but it also has to do its job of feeding my family to be worth it...

Romantic endeavors don't feed people, and nobody is a romantic when the stomach is empty LOL!

I couldn't have said it better.

[PapaVic]

Well ... I submit that some strains of Brandywine and Brandywine-type tomatoes make very good parents in a cross to develop heirloom hybrids. I suppose one has to take some pains in selecting and maintaining the better Brandywines for parent lines. Maybe I just lucked into one.

Bill

[canadamike]

You got a point there Bill. But I was just talking about producing food to eat. The Brandywines I have ordered over the years were always delicious but very poor producers. I understand that big beef, my actual red champion performer, is a son of Brandywine, or so I read.

If ever there is a productive strain, I would love to try it. And since I believe you, would you be kind enough to tell me which and tell me where to get it, pleaaaaase?

Michel