Grassroot Seed Network

[12540dumont]

dunno, but I'll ask.

[12540dumont]

Dear Listing Member of Grassroots Seed Network,

We are very excited and encouraged by the number of seed savers who
have put their faith in our new network by joining as listing members.
Thank you so much for your participation!

We now have the needed number of candidates to elect
our first Board of Directors, and plan to hold the election this month
so we can start the new year on a strong footing.

Many of you have contributed seed offerings to the Source List, and we
are thrilled to see those listings grow. We have had some problems with
our website in the past, but most of those have been remedied, and it
is now an easy matter to list seeds.

It is a core value of GSN to have the Board elected and policy set by
members who offer seeds, so we want to remind you that in order to be
eligible to vote in the upcoming Board election, you must be listing
seeds on the website.

Because we plan to hold the election this month, we
ask that those of you who have not yet listed seeds do so by
December 15th. Please also visit the Board Nominees page to read the
profiles of the Board candidates. We hope to send out ballots by
December 18th and count votes in early January.

We understand that this is a very busy season for everyone, but hope
you'll take the time to list seeds and review profiles so we can look
forward to having a great turnout in the election!

Best to all,
The Steering Committee

Will Bonsall
Sylvia Davatz
CR Lawn
George Stevens
Jim Tjepkema


Grassroots Seed Network
249 Bailey Rd
Industry, ME 04938

[zeedman]

It appears to be too late at this point to join & list seeds, since membership will not be 'activated' until payment has been received... if I read the membership rules correctly?

[12540dumont]

That's true, you have to pay to list seeds and vote!

[12540dumont]

The election is in progress. CR Lawn gathered the nominee bios and wrote a ballot and sent it out to all the listed members, by snail mail. The ballots are due back to Ashley Firmin by January 8.

Folks, make sure you vote. If I may be so bold as to stump for candidates....Joseph and Flowerweaver/aka Sage would be some cool folks on this board. There's so many good ones, it'll be hard to choose!

[deanriowa]

"If I may be so bold as to stump for candidates"

I am definitely looking for recommendations/endorsements as I am filling out my ballot this weekend.

Dean

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I think that I grow fabulous varieties that are incredibly-locally adapted and that thrive here in the mountain valleys. I have a wonderful loyal following of local gardeners that seek out my varieties each spring, and I share them widely with people in other climates... However, I was banned from participating in the Seed Savers Exchange because my seeds are "IMPURE", because I allow promiscuos pollination. That makes them nasty and unacceptable. Something to be shunned by any good grower. I had a local lady call me a "bad farmer" one time because I offered her colored sweet corn. She thought it has been contaminated, when in reality it was the offspring of generations of hard and deliberate breeding.

So the first thing I did when I got the ballot was to read through the bios and see if any of the candidates would be supportive of my way of growing, or if it would be the constant struggle I always face... Being labeled a bad farmer because I allow promiscuous pollination.

Paul "CR" Lawn's comment that "Maintaining purity is very important in seed preservation and seed crop work." was very off-putting to me. As the executor of a famous seed co-op I wonder if he would be able to set aside a strong bias towards purity in order to allow a style of growing that is the exact opposite of what he espouses.

Here's my endorsements... And why....

Sage Austin is a dear friend. We exchange seeds, and have a similar philosophy welcoming of diversity. Therefore Sage was the only candidate that has my automatic approval without even reading her bio. I already know that I can work effectively with Sage. She has shown herself to be easy to get along with. Sorry Sage if my endorsement hurts your chances....



Melissa Hilsgen also has my endorsement as a candidate due to the empahsis in her bio on local-adaptation and small scale growing. Local adaptation happens best with genetically diverse seeds. I don't much care for heirloom seeds, because those are crops that have been selected for local-adaptation in far away places, and then have been intensely inbred for decades, But her bio seems to be welcoming of diversity.

Irena Hollowell appeals to me for her interest in non-traditional crops. In addition to my interest in genetic diversity within crops, I am keenly interested in genetic diversity among crops. So rather than growing only common beans, I grow every species of bean than I can coax to reproduce in my difficult climate. I am constantly puttering around with domesticating new species, or discovering marginally domesticated varieties and incorporating them into my garden. I expect to plant okra seeds this spring that were donated to me by the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

Martha Gotleib's style and mannerism's appeal to me. Her commend that this is "sacred" work resonates with me. Whenever I take the time to think about the past and future history of my seeds, I am awed at how illiterate peasants could domesticate the crops which I currently enjoy, and I feel a sense of purpose towards those who will live 10,000 years from now. I fantasize that scientists working after the next dark age will discover centers of diversity for garlic, corn, beans, and squash which are located in my valley.

The other candidate bios didn't move me strongly one way or the other. I'm somewhat biased against the seed savers exchange, and against Maine, but those issues will take care of themselves as the organization matures.

While my heritage is not Hopi, I have been strongly influenced by Hopi mannerisms and world view. The idea of a voluntaryist society and organization works very well with me. I loved the security breaches in the original database that allowed anyone to add any category that they like, even when it was against the (not-communicated) wishes of the steering committee. As a board member I would advocate for that type of freedom in the database: Wikipedia continues to be the gold standard for voluntaryist open-source communications. A database administrator or a board of directors really can't be expected to be wise enough to choose categories that will work for all of the members. Members aught to be able to state what is importent to them and have it reflected in the database. Moderated only to the extent of undoing vandalism. Today when I talked to Will Bonsall, he called my choice 'stupid' to add a category entitled "Tomatoes, Highly Attractive to Bumblebees". We had a good laught about that, because I think that the SSE category is stupid for "Tomatoes: Red". In a voluntaryist organization we both get our categories, even if we think the other category is stupid.

[aineo]

How I wish I had joined in time to vote. I just sent in my check today, so I'm half a month too late as I understand it. Anxious to see where this goes. Good luck to Joseph and Sage.

[reed]

I just found this thread not long ago and also haven't joined yet. I will be watching to see how it comes out. It occurs to me there should be room for both philosophies on seed saving. The "pure" seeds are nice and I like that there are people who want to do that. If I had something will real historic or sentimental value to me or where I live I might want to keep it pure too but only if it also produced reliably and tasted good.  I don't know why someone in Florida or Maine, even if they liked some quality about it would want to keep it pure. 

I got over the romanticized notion of "pure" heirlooms a few years ago. I more often than not didn't save seeds because they rarely lived up to the garden book description of how wonderful they were. That, and I didn't realize until recently I could just let them mix and select till I do have something as good or better than the garden book description. I just kept buying a different one, would probably have been better off in a lot of cases with a new hybrid each year. 

I want to pretty much completely stop buying seeds and instead just save and trade. When I look for seeds I am much more interested in traits than histories. (Carrot - big, fat, keeps all winter in Maine) or (Corn - produces reliably in drought) would catch my attention.  

Seeds I have to trade might be (Pole Beans - small white and brown seeds, produces all season in SE Indiana... cooks fast as a dry bean... "heirloom" parents unknown or forgotten). I might include pictures of the actual plants the seed came from and description of the soil and weather when they grew but still, what "pure" seed saver would want that? 

I don't see anything in the mission statement that that precludes inclusion of both philosophies and hope that is how it works out. If it goes the entirely "pure" route I won't join. Not out of malice but because I would have little to nothing to offer. 

I can't vote so I'm not going to endorse anyone but I have a couple of favorites and will keep my fingers crossed.

[12540dumont]

Dear Listers,

We've just learned that the last two paragraphs of Martha Gottlieb's candidate profile were inadvertently omitted from the letter which accompanied your ballot. They were included in her profile on the website, and she has posted them on the Forum as well. There is no new information here, but it seems fair to make sure everyone has all the complete statements that should have been sent with the ballot, so we're copying the missing paragraphs below.

We'd also like to remind you to be sure to send in your completed ballots to arrive in our hands by January 8th!

A very happy New Year to all,
The Steering Committee

Martha Gottlieb's remaining statement:

"We could consider what to save and why. How does the SSE decide what to document, what to grow out, what to discard? How would we do it? If you look at seed saving as preserving plant features towards breeding locally adapted varieties and landraces, is that more valuable than maintaining pure seed of heirlooms? More basically, do we want to view our lists as offering traits for breeding or fine finished products, the results of years of development? Maybe we want all of the above, but the questions are interesting.

In 25 years of work in the Exhibition Hall of Maine's Common Ground Fair, I've seen hundreds of new and old varieties. Currently, as we judge them we look for trueness to type. However, It would also be good to judge by nutritional content, local adaptations and adaptability to climate change. The Grassroots Seed Network could be a resource for developing sustainable local food production where such qualities are valued. GSN will need to be clear about its vision and purposes. The mechanics of the organization exist to serve those goals."


Grassroots Seed Network
249 Bailey Rd
Industry, ME 04938

Telephone: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Web: grassrootsseednetwork.org/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/grassroot.seed

[12540dumont]

I had the seed purity discussion with Will myself and I argued strongly for Joseph's position. Really what's an heirloom seed.

Mortgage Lifter, Radiator Charlie's TOMATO 0.16 g
Retail Price: $3.25
[Heirloom] [Southern] [Organic] 79 days (Indeterminate) (vw, fw1) [Developed by M.C. Byles in the 1930s and released to SESE in 1985.] A legendary tomato always in demand in the Mid-Atlantic states. The following history is based on portions of our 1985 taped interview with M.C. Byles who developed this tomato in the early 1930's while in Logan, WV. Mr. Byles is affectionately known as "Radiator Charlie". He earned that nickname from the radiator repair business he opened at the foot of a steep hill on which trucks would often overheat. Radiator Charlie had no formal education or plant breeding experience, yet he created this legendary tomato by cross-breeding four of the largest-fruited tomatoes he could find: 'German Johnson', 'Beefsteak', an Italian variety, and an English variety. One of the four varieties was planted in the middle of a circle. Then, using a baby's ear syringe, he cross-pollinated the center plant with pollen from the circle of tomatoes. Next year he selected the best seedlings: he planted the best seedlings in the center and the rest in a circle around it. The pollination and selection process was repeated six more years until he had a stable variety. After Charlie developed and named this large tasty tomato, he sold plants for $1.00 each (in the 1940's) and paid off the $6000 mortgage on his house in 6 years. Each spring, gardeners drove as far as 200 miles to buy Charlie's seedling tomatoes.] Fruits of 'Mortgage Lifter' can average 2-1/2lbs and may reach 4 lbs when well grown. Plants are very productive, disease resistant, and continue to bear until frost. These large, slightly flattened, pink-red tomatoes are meaty and flavorful with few seeds.


This is from Southern Exposure. Now somehow this sounds a lot like the way Joseph is breeding. Although if this had been Joseph's tomato, it would have been passed around in the f/3 generation and folks would still be selecting out of that tomato.


You say tomato, I say tomatoe. I'd rather be in a group that was all inclusive rather than exclusive.

[12540dumont]

Dear GSN members,
We, the two members of the nominating committee have reluctantly come
to believe that the current election is so flawed that it should be
canceled. We will hold another, better executed election in a few
weeks.
Here are our reasons for this action.
First and most important, the slate of nominees is incomplete. One,
perhaps two people, were left off the list of candidates on the ballot.
Therefore, in order to honor the electoral process, the election has to
be redone.
Second, the nominating committee is charged with the duty of creating
the ballot and running the election. Unfortunately we were not the ones
who did this job. It will be our pleasure to run the new one.
We will be in touch with you all as the situation develops, and we
look forward to your reactions by email and in the forum.
Holly Dumont
Martha Gottlieb

[reed]

Is there anything new about the network? 

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Feb 27, 2015 6:57:41 GMT -5 reed said:

Is there anything new about the network? 

A messy election was held and a board was seated.

[reed]

Thanks for the update, messy is the norm for elections I guess.