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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Oct 24, 2011 19:55:35 GMT -5
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Post by jonnyyuma on Oct 24, 2011 22:06:52 GMT -5
......i think that this system designed to fail, will, and give us the advantage when that time comes. the thing is, how do we survive until then? i try to keep completely free of these corporate influences on my gene pools. i have alot of landraces and endangered native lines. they are healthier and tastier and dont go sterile. I am a little confused. CMS is designed to fail? Thanks |
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Post by turtleheart on Oct 25, 2011 8:26:16 GMT -5
......i think that this system designed to fail, will, and give us the advantage when that time comes. the thing is, how do we survive until then? i try to keep completely free of these corporate influences on my gene pools. i have alot of landraces and endangered native lines. they are healthier and tastier and dont go sterile. I am a little confused. CMS is designed to fail? Thanks if its purpose is to feed humans and keep us from death, then yes is it designed to fail. if you purpose it to create scarcity and destroy human agricultural economies to make way for transnational corporations, then it is a wild success. (no pun intended) |
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Post by steev on Oct 25, 2011 10:52:07 GMT -5
Scarcity is the mother of profit.
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Post by jonnyyuma on Oct 25, 2011 13:10:03 GMT -5
hmm. Interesting. I don't think it is designed to fail on either count.
So long as there is the demand from large scale production agriculture for hybrid seed we will see CMS. As soon as that goes away (unlikely) CMS will go away. It will have to be manually removed, but it will go away. You need an isogenic line as pollinator for the sterile female, just remove that sterile female from your production, leaving the fertile pollinator, and CMS is essentially gone. You will have to do some clean up, but it wouldn't be that difficult to stop using CMS.
Thanks,
Jonny
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 25, 2011 13:48:21 GMT -5
I guess it is hard to find someone that will actually bother growing and preserving what has been done, kind of seems like there needs to be a seed bank for all the plant breeders, or is there one that I don't know about ? "Seed Lending Libraries are centers with seed collections of locally adapted plants that people can freely take out, grow, save, & return seed to the library." miiu.org/wiki/Seed_Libraries |
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Post by turtleheart on Oct 25, 2011 14:40:08 GMT -5
hmm. Interesting. I don't think it is designed to fail on either count. So long as there is the demand from large scale production agriculture for hybrid seed we will see CMS. As soon as that goes away (unlikely) CMS will go away. It will have to be manually removed, but it will go away. You need an isogenic line as pollinator for the sterile female, just remove that sterile female from your production, leaving the fertile pollinator, and CMS is essentially gone. You will have to do some clean up, but it wouldn't be that difficult to stop using CMS. Thanks, Jonny i would rather go all the way back to wild carrot selection than carry sterile lines. the seed is half the reason i ever use carrot, medicinally. the concept of seed that does not produce seed is a strange attempt to control nature, instead of living alongside the patterns of creation. its a crime against the spirit of the plant whose seed is made sterile, as their reproductive functions are the faculties of the plants spirit, not human. we have a situation where if what we eat dies we die, and if we die so does what we eat, so the separation of these communities is an illusion. what you do to the things you eat you do to yourself. you are what you eat, its more than just molecules. CMS is actually against my law if you consider a strict definition of it, in defense of the reproductive functions of that which we depend on to survive. that is basic. |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Oct 25, 2011 17:06:49 GMT -5
I guess it is hard to find someone that will actually bother growing and preserving what has been done, kind of seems like there needs to be a seed bank for all the plant breeders, or is there one that I don't know about ? "Seed Lending Libraries are centers with seed collections of locally adapted plants that people can freely take out, grow, save, & return seed to the library." miiu.org/wiki/Seed_LibrariesI like this idea of Seed Lending Libraries. I will have to add that term to my vocabulary. www.richmondgrows.org/sister-libraries.html |
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Post by spacecase0 on Oct 25, 2011 18:27:42 GMT -5
I have been to the seed library in richmond,
if anyone wants to add to it I can drop it off for you,
it is a good idea,
the seeds are stored in paper envelopes and I guess that is ok,
but it does not seem like there are enough people growing things often enough to make sure nothing gets to old and lost.
they are not up for long term storage of seeds right now,
when I get lots of extra seeds for something I will go donate more.
it is just that they don't have info on things like inbreeding depression there,
and many people that go use it don't know either,
I talked to a few people there, some stressed out at something, some happy to help,
and it seems like they have not enough people interested to make it really work well.
it would likely help if it were not in the middle of such a big city where few people can garden.
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Post by steev on Oct 25, 2011 19:01:54 GMT -5
Sounds like they need a website to access a wider population. As I recall, Richmond is pretty much detached housing, so yards are pretty widely available. I think the relative lack of gardening in our cities isn't due to lack of opportunity so much as lack of knowledge/interest. We need more gardening programs in our schools; not everyone gets the advantage of a start in childhood gardening with Grandad, as I did.
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Post by jonnyyuma on Oct 25, 2011 20:49:17 GMT -5
i would rather go all the way back to wild carrot selection than carry sterile lines. the seed is half the reason i ever use carrot, medicinally. the concept of seed that does not produce seed is a strange attempt to control nature, instead of living alongside the patterns of creation. its a crime against the spirit of the plant whose seed is made sterile, as their reproductive functions are the faculties of the plants spirit, not human. we have a situation where if what we eat dies we die, and if we die so does what we eat, so the separation of these communities is an illusion. what you do to the things you eat you do to yourself. you are what you eat, its more than just molecules. CMS is actually against my law if you consider a strict definition of it, in defense of the reproductive functions of that which we depend on to survive. that is basic. I have a couple questions. Do the same rules for you apply if CMS and/or GMS occur naturally and people just use what nature has made available to their advantage? Also, if we never intend to eat the seed, does that affect your view of CMS? For example, in general we don't eat onion seed, but CMS is quite prevalent. Thanks Jonny |
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Post by jonnyyuma on Oct 25, 2011 20:51:50 GMT -5
I like the idea of a seed library. That sounds very interesting. I wonder if you get over due fees and if they will wave them if you bring in canned goods?
I am working with my niece's school to get a garden and a curriculum going around the garden. It should be fun
Thanks
Jonny
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 25, 2011 21:37:31 GMT -5
I'll be bold:
<noting that this thread is still being carried in the soapbox category>
As of a few minutes ago, I have decided that it is immoral to deliberately propagate cytoplasmic male sterility regardless of whether the reason is corporate conspiracy, or because people are clamoring for inexpensive hybrids. I believe it to be immoral even if more food can be produced by using CMS hybrids.
In the natural world, CMS is an abnormality which will tend to eliminate itself from the gene-pool. I believe that to deliberately take an aberration like that and make it the basis of an entire people's food supply is not only immoral, it is criminal. I can't attribute sinfulness to a person that plants CMS ignorantly: Not knowing the true nature of their seeds. And I can't attribute sinfulness to someone who knows that they are growing CMS, but is honestly working towards getting a more healthy population.
I was going to take a few years to wean myself away from sterile potatoes... But I can't any more. In the next growing season I will only plant abundantly fruitful tubers, and true seeds that are known to be abundantly fruitful. If I trial true potato seeds or tubers from others, any plant that is not abundantly fruitful the first year will not be allowed to propagate. I will not allow sterile potato seeds or tubers to leave my garden for planting purposes. Sad to have to throw away so much clever potato germplasm, but at some point, someone has gotta pay the price to get a healthy potato population. Might as well be me. I'd hate for my great-grandchildren to suffer another potato famine. That's less likely if I eliminate sterile-potatoes from my garden during the next growing season.
I am crying, for all the time and labor that I have devoted to trying to grow potatoes that cannot be grown and should not be grown. I am crying due to the sins of my forefathers that left that kind of a potato crop to me for my use. I am crying for the sins of the agri-businesses who are currently developing CMS varieties and leaving them as the legacy for my grand-children. I am hopeful that a small remnant of informed home gardeners will be able to see the sins of our forefathers and current farmers and preserve healthy alternatives for use at some future time when the forces that are currently driving big-agra are no longer.
<stepping down from soapbox>
turtleheart: I hope that you'll stay around the forum for a long time. I am benefiting from your non-corporate non-Anglo world view.
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 25, 2011 23:15:17 GMT -5
Joseph,
I am in total agreement. If the bees don't go there...well then it's no good. The bees keep everything growing and going. So sunflowers that are sterile will never be grown in my farm.
I'm guilty of planting the same potatoes over and over again, but no longer.
This year I went to the heirloom seed conference in a way to find the seed libraries. I have seed to donate.
So, those folks from Richmond...the woman who runs the show, Rebecca Newburn told me that when the receive something rare, they have folks that are trained and conserve things.
I sent her the Petaluma Goldrush seeds as I believe it's a good match for them. Also, there's a lot of people in Richmond with small yards. I think it's a Navy town...read lots of poor women and folks of color always living on their wits.
So, the seed library in NY never bothered to answer me. Several others have been very slow. But it's a good idea.
My thoughts of seed are that they should be shared. More likely to be saved between us than left in Svalbard Global Seed Bank...frozen and unreachable by any of us.
I believe that seed was meant to be shared and saved and passed around. You got a library? Start lending. You have seeds you wish would be preserved? Get them into the world.
Joseph has generously shared his seeds with me. I have tried to share my seeds with him. I'm in California, he's in Utah. Does it matter, not a whit. Why? The OP's will adapt. If the natives could trade seed, so can we. The deal is, as my mentor St. Joe told me, don't give up on a seed the first year. Try it again. And again, the seeds are smart. They will adapt if they can.
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Post by steev on Oct 26, 2011 1:09:28 GMT -5
Being a tree-hugging, soil-worshipping Orthodox Ecological Heathen, Unreformed, this sounds like my congregation. Let us fall to our knees and pray, pulling a few weeds while we're down there. However troublesome things may appear, though we may occasionally be bewildered, we are never lost, but are always directly over the center of the Earth.
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