Heirloom and Heritage Gardening

[Ringel05]

Looked around and didn't see a past thread on this, pretty sure I missed it.
I was doing some surfing about GMO and ran into this.

Heirloom and heritage seeds

Noticed how tomatoes don't taste the same as they used to? Experienced strawberries that seem to be just insipid bags of water? Do apples seem to be more acidic and less flavorsome than in bygone years to you?

As we get older, our taste buds certainly do get less sensitive, but there is a more insidious reason for fruit and vegetables not tasting anywhere near as good as they once did.

They've been engineered not to.

In the USA, only 5% of the apple varieties that existed 200 years ago still remain. In the UK, 90% of vegetable varieties have disappeared over the last century.

 

[Ringel05]

Suicide and zombie seeds

Monsanto is also the company that bought rights to "suicide" or "terminator" seed technology some years ago. This is where the seeds produced by a crop are sterile; helping to ensure that the farmer does have to pay for more seed. Thankfully, global backlash and a UN treaty in 2000 prevented these suicide seeds from entering the marketplace. There was great concern of contamination of other crops resulting in normal seeds acquiring the terminator traits, causing crop failures and giving Monsanto even greater control over the seed industry.

In a recent twist on terminator seed technology, it seems that "Zombie" crops are being developed in the EU and the research is being funded by the British taxpayer. The seeds are called zombies as they have been engineered to produce sterile seed that can be made viable again with a chemical treatment. The chemical treatment will of course likely be sold by the company that markets the seed.

(Same source as listed in first post.)

 

[Ravi]

I buy my seeds from Seed of Change....

 

[Skull Pilot]

Agribusiness has lessened the diversity of food and we are all the poorer for it

Planting heirloom fruits and veggies is at least a start in reclaiming diversity and by doing so improving our health and well being.

 

[strollingbones]

gmo's are bad....dont buy gmo seeds

 

[Ringel05]

gmo's are bad....dont buy gmo seeds

You do know most of what we eat nowadays is GMOed.

 

[strollingbones]

not me...since we grown much of our own food.....gmo shit is for big business ......

 

[strollingbones]

it is amazing frankenstein mal there is corn seed that kills the silk worms......holy hell do i want to eat that?

 

[Ringel05]

not me...since we grown much of our own food.....gmo shit is for big business ......

Most food that is available today started out in different forms and over the centuries we have modified it to fit our needs. Splicing is a form of genetic modification, cross breeding is a form of genetic modification, etc..

 

[zzzz]

The future is technology and bio-architecture. The seed companies and everyone else involved in crop production are after a profit. Everything else is secondary. when the genetic diversity is removed from any population that population becomes susceptible to being wiped out by disease. That is why in nature there is a diversity and the strong survive and the weak perish.

There are places that sell heirloom and I buy from them. The crops raised for supermarkets are bred for shelf life or color, not taste. Bland stuff but they last longer and the people who live in the cities have to buy it. Out here in the boondocks we can grow our own or buy from the farmers markets or get some from our neighbors.

The biggest threat though is the bio-engineered crops and the threat of cross pollination with the heirloom seeds we plant. The wind can carry pollen quite a distance. We are already experiencing some cross pollination between bio seed crops that were supposed to be isolated from non-bio food crops and have entered our food supply. This contamination will continue to happen as long as we experiment out in the open.

Hopefully a strain will not get out that will destroy our ability to raise crops that will contaminate the soil to where nothing will grow. A nuclear disaster but with crops not bombs.