 |
 |
Letter to Fedco from Brett Grohsgal The sun is setting and I am growing more hurried. My ears are starting to feel the freezing air: it was 48° when I began walking the fields, but now the muddy ground is starting to crunch and solidify under my feet and I am torn between whether to tend the greenhouse wood stove or to get something on my head. There are tomato starts in the south greenhouse, pressing genetic matters in the fields and pesky bodily extremities asking for wool, microfiber, or at least earflaps. It is March 6, 2008. I am a farmer by profession. I got up at 2 am, did my on-farm chores, settled into the truck, and was in the Big City at my first delivery stop at 4:20 am. Fueled by coffee and adrenalin, I dashed and darted about the urban core, leaving hundreds of boxes of fresh vegetables in my wake. The gods of traffic were most kind, and by 3 pm I was safely back on the farm. But the early start has left my body and especially my mind deeply tired when I begin the afternoon chores. Feeding the hens, gathering eggs and lighting the greenhouse wood stove take time but no thought. The genetic question whispering to me for attention, though, will first steal me away. The problem is one small field of Tenderleaf… Tenderleaf is one of our winter stalwarts, a mild-flavored romaine look-alike that is actually a brassica. It goes into most of the mesclun and cooking greens mixes that we sell throughout the winter, and gives lush yields of fragrant napini (tender flower buds 3" long) in early spring. Sales of these are effortless. If planted in September and if well-rooted by the first hard frost, Tenderleaf is amazingly winter-hardy for such a delicate and versatile green. This little 30'x80' plot was an emergency sowing. The extreme drought of 2007, bringing only 3" of rain from April until Oct. 27, forced us to ration our irrigation pond. Two thirds of our autumn plantings died from under-watering and the famished grasshoppers that descended on anything green. I direct-sowed this small patch of Tenderleaf in November only days before first frost. We had already squandered countless pounds of our select seed into short-lived grasshopper bait, so I needed to replenish our seed stocks. The patch germinated and grew slowly through winter. By now the 2,000 plants are at the eight-leaf stage but they appear to be too small to survive the Canadian front pushing into our region threatening a deep freeze. The winds have already started their climb to the predicted 30 knots, and the forecast is for temperatures down to 6–10°F by morning. The main crop will certainly handle it, but what of these little troopers, sown so late and now still so tiny and unprotected? I need those to survive for a good May seed harvest. My mind knows that a sheet of Reemay would protect the seedlings fully. I wrestle with my tiredness, the rapidly waning day and the press of other chores. I decide to let the plants tell me what to do. I choose one average-sized seedling, dig my fingers below it and study the plant’s root system. It is vigorous, strong and beautiful, more than three times longer than the above-ground rosette. I apologize to the sacrifice and now know that nearly all of these last-sown plants will make it without the Reemay. I complete my other chores late and walk back towards the house with firmly frozen ground underfoot. The first early stars are crystal-clear in the lovely blue-black twilight. Wonder is in my heart as my mind returns to population genetics. The crops that enable our winter farming are so incredibly strong. These millions of individuals reside in smaller breeding pools: Chinese Thick-Stem mustard, Ice-bred arugula and Land-Race collards we can taste and harvest and sell to appreciative customers. On many other farms, winter wheat is similarly growing in the chill winds, ignored by most humans until it morphs into bread and pastries. The winter plants’ lives are nearly beyond our limited comprehension. They hunker down in the freezes and grow cautiously in the thaws, to explode into vigor come spring. The populations are triumphs primarily of their own history and genetic potential and only secondarily of intentional human breeding. As a successful crop breeder I accept that I am subservient to the populations that I “manage.” The plants’ adaptability and genetic reservoirs carry the real weight. This truth illuminates a sad reality of plant breeders' egos and of corporate hubris. Gene jockeys and huge corporations have spawned Roundup Ready winter wheat and GM canola. These same companies and technicians then aggressively claim that their molecular machinations and GMO crops will save humanity from drought, climate change, famine, and, of course, low share prices and stockholder disquiet. Yet for millions of years nature subjected plants to severe survival pressures like real winter and parching droughts. For thousands of years before GMOs, farmers used recurrent mass selection to guarantee the survival of their families and cultures. Wheat and brassicas and many gene-lines grew in the winter and sustained our ancestors. Population genetics have been at play for countless millennia and humans have been followers, secondary to the primary driver—the amazing potential of plants. The GMO crowd flip that essential relationship and try to sell us a modern snake-oil of new, highly invasive molecular breeding techniques to save our species. In their paradigm, the proud pioneer scientist nurtured by the huge agricultural company will triumph over adversity. This icy night I am wagering on the Tenderleaf, on less arrogant and more time-tested breeding techniques. I bet on the plants. |
Fedco Seeds, PO Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903
|
Copyright
Fedco Seeds Inc.
December 1, 2008
|