Increasing sweetness in open pollinated corn.

Summary of 2011 breeding work seeking to select for sweetness in the development of two open pollinated sweet corn varieties. -Jonathan Spero

The method I am using to select for sweetness is to first, select the plants that have sweeter ears, and second, to select the sweeter kernels from the ears found on those sweeter plants. Selection of sweeter kernels relies on osmotic pressure from higher sugar levels to cause sweeter corn kernels to commence wrinkling more slowly than kernels on the same cobs that have less sugars.

Top Hat and Tuxana corn are two f4 populations that were grown out in 2011. I now have 250 or more cobs each of "Top Hat", "Tuxana yellow" , and "Tuxana white" corn that have been selected for sweetness first by taste testing, and then by selection of those kernels slowest to commence wrinkling. The cobs, with selected kernels marked, are in the racks drying.

Step 1 - finding the plants that make sweeter ears.

This involves people out in the field tasting corn and choosing the sweetest ears when the corn is ripe to eat. For the most part, I selected plants with two ears so that the secondary ear could be removed and sampled while the primary ear was left undisturbed on the plant. I experimented with a procedure to harvest the corn ahead, so that it could be taste tested when a day or two old.

I experimented this year with a community based approach to taste testing and had several people came out to the farm to be corn tasters. I posted on a local email board and offered free corn to anyone who would come and participate in a 3 hour corn tasting session. I compared this approach to using a regular taste testing crew. I also worked to determine the role of a refractometer in a process that relied mostly on taste to find the sweetest corn. The methods used and the conclusions drawn are discussed below.

Step 2 - identifying and marking the kernels that commence wrinkling last

This process is critical to sweetness selection. I selected within the cobs for the kernels that were the last to commence to dry. This process should pick kernels that are homozygous for the sugary enhancer (se) gene as well as selecting for any other sweetness enhancing genetics that may be present in the population.

Top Hat (2011) is the f4 generation of Tuxedo. Seed prior to this year had not been selected for sweetness by kernel selection. Taste test selection for sweetness in 2010 in Top Hat yielded only very modest gains in sweetness in the 2011 crop. Slow drying Top Hat kernels have been selected in 2011 as described herein. The results will not be known until these seeds are grown out in the next generation.

Tuxana (2011) is the f4 generation from the cross of Anasazi x Tuxedo. The Anasazi parent corn is a landrace and this f4 generation exhibited variation in many characteristics, as might be expected. Achieving greater uniformity will take some time. A white, a yellow and a purple or multicolored corn are being or will/could be selected from this cross. In 2010 I selected and marked both the yellow and the white Tuxana kernels, and chose the kernels to plant in 2011 by looking for slow-to-dry kernels and then choosing separately the whitest white and deepest yellow kernels. In 2011 the white and the yellow Tuxana lines were grown separately and slow drying kernels selected from both.

The results with the white Tuxana line verified that the basic method works. The white corn was notably sweeter in 2011 than in 2010. Brix readings of 5 samples taken ranged from 18 - 23, compared with an average of around 15 the year before.

What I did not know is that yellow kernels with se tend to be lighter in yellow coloration than those without the se, and therefore, in selecting the deepest yellow kernels, I was working against myself. I did not gain in sweetness in the yellow Tuxana line in 2010, so the yellow line in 2011 was considerably less sweet than the white. By choosing last-to-dry lighter yellow kernels from the 2011 harvest (I now think it may be possible to see the right shade of color), I expect the Tuxana yellow corn to be sweeter in the next generation.

In the yellow Tuxana line, with about 1400 corn plants, I only selected plants with two good ears. Taste selection is easier when the secondary ear can be removed for tasting, and this way the primary ear remains undamaged. Testing was done in the yellow Tuxana with a 24 to 48 hour delay after harvest. I was able to find about 250 plants with two ears where the secondary ear was moderately or more sweet. Kernels that were slowest to commence drying on the primary ear from those sweeter plants have been selected and marked.

In the white, with about 900 corn plants, I dropped the 2 ear requirement, and did bite tests of the single ear of corn still on the stalk. Therefore, only immediate sweetness could be evaluated. The white Tuxana is the furthest along in sweetness selection, and could be the first ready to confirm and document that this process to enhance sweetness works. However, I need to select out all the colors to get to pure white. There was a lot of yellow and some red and blue remaining in this first generation of "all white" corn.

Methods of taste testing - trying a community based approach:

Our collaborative / community based model for corn tasting "paid" volunteers in corn. Taste testing must be done when the corn is ripe, and at that time there is plenty of corn from for the testers to take home from other than the selected plants. I posted a note on a local email list and about 8 people came out to the farm for a 3 hour session as corn tasters. Usually there was myself, an intern, and two community members as the tasting crew. I think all had a good time, learned something, and volunteers took home as much corn as they wanted. Later on, we switched to using a regular crew of three practiced taste testers.

We tried three methods of putting taste testers to work.

In the first method, the group of three tasters sat at a table alongside the corn patch. A runner, usually me, went and picked the corn and brought it back to the table for evaluation. I could bring in two at a time without confusing them. I would take the secondary ear of the first plant, place a red colored flag at the base of the plant, and put the ear of corn in my left pocket. I would similarly harvest the secondary ear of a different plant, mark the plant with a blue flag, and put it the cob in my right pocket. Then, after the tasters made their evaluation "in" or "out", I would hang a yellow flag from the top of the stalk of the chosen "in" plants and move my red and blue flags on to the next two corn plants. Tasters rated each ear on a 1 to 5 scale for sweetness, eating quality and appearance, and then made an "in" or "out" judgment. This method is convenient for the volunteers as they sit at a table instead of clambering through the corn. It leaves some record, as participants score the corn ear, and could allow for some statistical analysis. Using this first method, a group of 4 (3 tasters and a runner) could test 80 to 100 ears in a 3 hour session. With a couple thousand or more ears coming ripe, we needed to move faster.

In the second method, a group of three walked together down the rows. The lead person would harvest the secondary ear from the plant (or, if this was a delayed sweetness tasting, pick up the previously harvested, paper plate wrapped and rubber-banded ear), shuck the ear, and all 3 of us would taste it. We would collectively decide "in" or "out" using sweetness as first criteria but also considering eating quality and the appearance of both cob and plant. We rotated who would give an opinion first so that one person did not end up dominating the decisions. Participants should keep something of a "poker face" when tasting, as it seems natural to look to another taster's facial expression for an opinion. We kept no written records and simply flagged the keeper plants. Using this second method, a crew of 3 could test about 200 ears in a 3 hour session.

In the third method, I stopped using new community volunteers as this method requires experienced tasters. We first "tuned in" by all 3 people tasting and rating a few cobs, with refractometer readings take in addition. Then, the three tasters would separately work adjacent rows, keeping fairly close together. Most plants could be called "in" or "out" by only one person. If that person was uncertain, then one or both of the others would also taste the cob and give an opinion. A brix reading would be made if desired. Using this third method, a crew of three could test about 400 ears in a 3 hour session.

Brix: Although I relied primarily on taste tests, a refractometer has some use in sweetness selection. At the beginning of the tasting session, we, usually a crew of three, each took a bite of 6 to10 ears, compared opinions as to sweetness, and simultaneously took refractometer readings on corn from those cobs. This checked that we were able to agree on "sweet" and gave us a general brix range and a minimum acceptable reading.

To take a reading, we would slice off at least 15 or 20 kernels, squeeze them through a hand operated garlic press, and drip the liquid onto the refractometer plate. Refractometer readings are fuzzy and readable only give or take probably one or two numbers. Furthermore, those brix readings seem to increase as the corn juice settles. I found 2 people could agree (sweeter vs. less sweet) with the refractometer maybe 4 times out of 5. We found that the refractometer missed corn with an off taste, and could not judge other traits of eating quality. It required field-cleaning the refractometer each time. We used the brix reading to help tune in our sense of taste, and then as one more vote on the crew if tasters were unsure or in disagreement. In the first ears of the tasting session, we used it often, maybe 5 to 10 times. Once we got going, we used the refractometer only occasionally.

Delayed sampling:

Sampling the corn 24 to 48 hours after harvest (instead of at the moment the ear was harvested from the plant) let us taste the corn more like when a customer would buy it in a store. Some sugars in corn turn to starch more quickly than others and I wished to better choose corn that would stay sweet. I needed to be able to track the tasted cob back to the right plant. To do this, the secondary ear was harvested and wrapped in a paper plate with a number written on it. The plate was secured around the harvested ear with a rubber band. A corresponding number label was attached to the plant with the primary ear undisturbed. The wrapped plates were each left at the base of the plant. We had some animal pressure (fox, skunk, opossum) but the paper plate and rubber bands slowed them down, so only perhaps 5% of the cobs were lost. Looking back, if cob and plant are to be labeled anyway, it may have made more sense to bring the corn inside for tasting, and to return after tasting to flag the keeper plants by number.

Kernel Selection

This is where increase in sweetness should occur quickly. The primary cobs from the selected plants were harvested about 2 weeks past eating stage when the first kernels on the more mature plants were starting to wrinkle. Kernels should be far enough along in development to make viable seed, but the kernels on most cobs should still be smooth and not yet showing signs of wrinkling. At this point the juices in the corn are just beginning to gel. If you poke a kernel with your finger nail, it will no longer squirt.

I harvested the ears of the selected plants when 10% - 20% of those plants had cobs with kernels that were showing any sign of wrinkling. In the Top Hat, fairly uniform for maturity, harvest was done all at once. With variation in maturity in the Tuxana, I harvested twice, about a week apart. The selection goal is to find and mark the last kernels to begin to show signs of drying on each separate ear. I went through the un-husked cobs daily in order to catch the cobs when the kernels were just starting to wrinkle.

Each morning, I peeled back a bit of husk on each bob and looked for wrinkles. If there were none, I smoothed the husk back over the corn and left the cob to check again in a day or two. If I saw any wrinkles, I peeled back and removed the husk. I set the cobs up with air flow all around or rotated them frequently, as a difference in exposure to drying air also affects commencement of drying of the individual kernels. The kernels on the cob, now open to the air, commence to wrinkle over the course of the day. It is necessary to mark the smooth kernels before all kernels commence wrinkling, at which point it is too late to make selection. After the initial flush of cobs that are ready to mark on the day of harvest, the number of cobs ready for kernel selection peaked on the 3rd or 4th day after the corn was harvested, and selection was complete by about the 9th day after harvest.

There is a point where it is easy to discern already wrinkling from not yet wrinkling kernels, and it is clear which kernels to choose for an hour or more. During that time, we used a marker (black on the yellow kernels, blue on the white kernels) or a paint brush (white on the purple kernels) to mark those kernels that still looked full when other kernels around them were starting to wrinkle. I set the cobs with marked kernels in racks to dry and will pick out the marked kernels from the cobs during the winter.

How much time did it take to do this ?

2011 labor hours total for both Top Hat and Tuxana corns:

Prepare soil, grow corn crops 94 hours

Sample at milk stage 163*

kernel selection 149

pick out kernels 30

* this included our experiments with community corn tasting and delayed sampling, each of which added roughly 30 hours of work time.

In 2012, I hope to repeat this process. At the end of two cycles I hope to have corn that is uniformly sweet and comparable in sweetness to hybrid se corn varieties on the market today.

October 2011

Jonathan Spero

Lupine Knoll Farm

spero.jonathan@gmail.com

P.O. Box 16 Williams OR 97544

Response to Farm Bureau "Call to Arms"

Don’t disparage 40 acres and a mule

American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman (Call to arms – Capital Press Jan 15, 2010) seeks to draw a line between “consumers” and “extremists” who would “drag agriculture back to the days of 40 acres and a mule.”

Today’s agriculture has done a remarkable job of creating large amounts of cheap food at a low price. By some other yardsticks, we do not fare so well.

Our energy balance is negative. It takes ten calories of energy to make one calorie of food. That cannot be sustained.

Our vegetables are, for the most part, less nutritious than they were a century ago.

Our farms rarely support us, except maybe at the largest scale. Bigger machines and fewer people means collapsing rural communities. It means more energy dependence, and less people on the land. People on the land are essential to national security and the ability to survive calamity.

So it looks to me like the comparison between modern agriculture and the guy with the mule is about a wash. Both have advantages, both have something to teach the other, and both are probably necessary to both feed the world and to care for it’s inhabitants.

There is a more important divide than the one between “modern farmer” and “40 acres and a mule”, and this is one that the Farm Bureau would like to brush over. That is the divide between the farmer and the agro-industrialist. The farmer cares for his land. The farmer is husbandman to his livestock and to his crops. He will ask “is my soil better or worse than it was a few years ago ?” and “ are my animals healthy or merely surviving ?” The agro-industrialist sees his farm simply as a factory, mixing biological inputs (plants and animals) with chemical inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, additives, fuel, etc.) to create outputs of commodities.

Mr. Stallman says the farmers and the agro-industrialists need to stand united against the environmentalists, foodies, animal rightists, and it seems, often consumers. I am not so sure this is where the farmer’s interests lie. Farmers have been, and can be, the best of environmentalists. It is only since WW II that the farm-as-factory model has taken hold. Humans have been farming for thousands of years. Farmers care about their animals. They want them to be healthy and to live as comfortable a life as possible up until they give their lives to feed us. Farmers want the crops they harvest to be of the best possible quality. I think the Farm Bureau should recognize that everyone who buys groceries is a legitimate stakeholder and is also a potential ally.

Jonathan Spero

Jonathan Spero tends 4 acres of vegetable seed crops and a couple of steers in Southern Oregon.

Solutions to some of our Health Care problems

How to meet at least some of our health care challenges

There are multiple shortcomings in our health system today. These have been widely discussed, so I will only outline what I see as the key problems below, before moving onto a solution.

1. Our Health care system is too expensive.

Americans pay substantially more for health care than do citizens of nearly every other country.

The current insurance system has distorted the market so that simple medical procedures can bankrupt uninsured or underinsured families.

American businesses are put at a competitive disadvantage in world markets as U.S. companies pay substantial health care premiums, while competing companies in other countries do not directly pay for employee healthcare.

Within the insurance cost matrix, individuals and small businesses pay disproportionately high healthcare insurance costs compared to corporate or government employees; this discourages the grass roots of the economy.


2. Our health care system fails to provide a safety net, and this costs us more while providing us less.

People with inadequate insurance forego routine and preventive care. Routine & preventive care are the most cost effective parts of health services and do the most to improve quality of life.

Emergency rooms across the country have been forced to become more than emergency rooms. We have long wait times in overcrowded rooms filled with uninsured patients, who often cannot pay, needing routine care, or care that would have been routine if care had been sought in a timely manner. This puts at risk insured patients who need emergency services. The emergency room has become an expensive doctor’s office, funded by inflating costs for insurance and for those who pay for service.

Costs are out of control for anyone trying to pay out of pocket.

3. Our health care system is inefficient. There are many options for keeping people healthy, and often less expensive alternative treatments are not supported by the system.

4. We are not going to have enough doctors, nurses, nurses aides or medical tech people to take care of us baby boomers as we age.

Medical School is too expensive for most to contemplate. Our colleges, lacking spaces, turn away qualified applicants to nursing schools. The prospect of large debts affect the choice to go into medicine and health as careers. Debts influence what parts of medicine new doctors pursue. More health practitioners at every level will be needed in the coming years. We need to encourage health and medicine as career choices.
We could keep going with the problem, but let us now look at a 2 part solution.

PART 1. A new approach to training health care professionals - from nurses aides to specialist doctors. Create an alternative to the existing system we have created to train new health care workers.

Institute a one year for one year tradeoff to gain medical training. On completion of a year of free schooling, the health care student would spend a year working in a clinic or hospital for a only a living stipend.

Year 1 of training would include basic first aid & sanitation and the basics of working in health care. It may include self care and child, family or elder care. On completion of the “year 1” classes, the recipient is awarded a certificate. To continue, onto “year 2”, the student would be obligated to work for a one year in a clinic, nursing home or other private health care facility for only a stipend.

At the completion of that one year of service, a second year of medical education would be offered, again entirely free of charge. Again, the “year 2” graduate would be obligated to repay the training by working for a year. This continues with a year by year exchange of service for education.

People who might contemplate a career in healthcare would have a path that guarantees a survival stipend, and leaves open the choice about how far to pursue training. A completion certificate is offered at each level. No completed year is a waste. At any time, there is no more than one year of commitment to the clinics, after which one can enter the private sector, with both education and on the ground experience, and without debt. One might stop with a year 2 certificate, or perhaps carry on through a year 6 certificate. Each would have value in gaining health care employment.

Early years training could be provided at the Community Colleges. Later year’s training would probably be based at universities and medical schools or possibly hospitals.

A doctor who went through this system might have spent 20 years of time, have 10 years of experience, and no debt, when ready to enter private practice.
The traditional route to an M.D. would remain open. These two routes of training would converge at the door to the licensing exams.



PART 2. Clinics – open to everyone, staffed by students and graduates of the school-for-service program. These clinics would provide preventative, routine, and some limited emergency care and be available to everyone. These clinics would, under physician / pharmacist supervision, be able to offer generic and low cost prescription medicine free of charge for those unable to pay.

These clinics could be operated by local governments or schools, by hospitals, or by private health care providers contracting to serve an area or population. It would be necessary to create mobile clinics (converted school busses?) to serve isolated or under-served areas.


We can do all of this without decreasing the health care options of insured people.

This plan would not replace private insurance or private doctors or hospitals. The clinics would not be obligated to provide long term care or expensive therapies. If you go to the clinic, there would probably not be a choice of doctors. You might be seen first by a nurse and then, if deemed necessary, by a doctor.

Private medical Insurance would still be necessary for greater medical choice, or long term, specialist or other expensive care. Insurance would likely break out into two categories, with lower priced insurance covering only what the clinics did not, and a more complete coverage package, allowing choice of private medical practitioners and services from the start.

This plan would not provide insurance to more people. It would, however, create access to some level of basic health care for everyone. Right now, a person with no insurance and little money can be shut out of health care access entirely.

A system where preventative or routine care is unavailable or unaffordable for some is dangerous for patients and ultimately makes medical care more expensive for everyone. A publicly funded system of free clinics that provide preventive, routine & urgent care would lower the cost of medical insurance, free up hospital emergency rooms for emergencies, and improve health care for the uninsured or under-insured. A system of year for year tradeoffs, education for service, would allow a person, starting with nothing but the intelligence and the drive, to become a nurses aide, a nurse, or a doctor, and to do so without debt. This would fill the ranks of those who will care for us as we age.


Setting up this system will be expensive.

But it will cost less and give us more than what we have now.

Jonathan Spero
P.O. Box 16
Williams OR 97544
email: pogo@mcmatters.net

Can Afganistan defeat Obama ?

Can Afganistan defeat Obama ?

There is an eerie parallel between Obama’s plans for the war in Afghanistan and the fate of another president who inherited a war that never should have been started. Johnson inherited, and was undone by, Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson, whose legacy includes the Civil Rights Act and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, is maybe best remembered by the anti-war slogan “Hey, hey, LBJ ,how many kids did you kill today?”
Vietnam could not be won because we lost the battle for the hearts of the people in the path of the war.
Like Vietnam, Afghanistan has not been conquered by a foreign country in a very long time. Let us not forget the proxy war years of the cold war era. , The Afgan guerillas beat the Russians, just as the Vietnamese beat us. Escalating U.S. involvement in a foreign war that someone else had started brought down Lyndon Johnson.

The Afgan war cannot be won unless we win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Afgan people. It may not be possible to “win” in Afganistan at all. President Obama should remember this lesson and not fall deeper in a trap much like the one that ensnared LBJ.

Jonathan & Heidi Spero

“The technology of the man cannot overcome the will of a determined people” – Huey Newton.

Breeding a new broccoli variety

Jonathan and Jessie Spero
Lupine Knoll Farm Oregon Tilth Certified Organic
1225 Messinger Rd. Grants Pass, Oregon
Mail: P.O. Box 16 Williams OR 97544
email: pogo@mcmatters.net Ph. (541) 846-6845

Breeding a new broccoli variety – breeding for organic conditions - Selection at 0.02%

The goal: to create a vigorous open pollinated broccoli variety, developed to thrive under organic conditions, able to survive weed pressure, and able to produce with less than optimal soil fertility.

The method: This project continues work begun by Oregon State University. In 2002, seed was provided to me from O.S.U. through the Farmer’s Cooperative Genome Project (which operated under Oregon Tilth). This seed from O.S.U. is a diverse population of open pollinated broccoli varieties that had been mixed and grown together. In 2003, I grew out about 150 plants from this breeding stock provided by the University. I selected about 30 plants and saved seed, part of which was returned to O.S.U. I had 10 lbs. of seed from those selected broccoli plants left over, and this was used for this 2009 grow-out..

I planted very densely on a challenging site. This ground has a high weed seed load (mostly pigweed/wild amaranth and veronica). Last year the site was in corn, which left it fairly nutritionally deficient. The 40’ x 200’ site was disked in and roto-tilled once. The seed bed was not thoroughly prepared. 4 beds, each 6 feet wide and 200 feet long, were created. Fertilizer consisted of 100 lbs. of composted chicken manure and 1 yard of raw llama manure on each 6’ x 200’ bed.

On April 1, 2009, I broadcast – sowed 2 pounds of broccoli seed (200,000+ seeds) on each 6’ x 200’ bed. Of these 800,000 broccoli seeds, about 100 plants remain to mature seed after surviving both vigorous natural competition and human selection. (Aug. 9, 2009)

I weeded and thinned. What came up, as you might guess, is a thick carpet of broccoli seedlings and weeds. The method used for weeding and thinning I refer to as “rescue weeding”. It is a useful tool in selecting for vigor. I don’t want the plants to have too easy a time. Only enough weeding is done to keep the best plants barely ahead of the weeds. The plant needs to be able to survive while being crowded by other broccoli and weed seedlings. 2-3 weeks after germination, the healthiest broccoli seedlings were thinned to about a 1” x 1” spacing, then 2 weeks later, plants were further thinned to about a 2” x 2” spacing. Weeding consisted of rescuing the plants from being overwhelmed and giving the most vigorous an extra inch of space. I spent 20 hours per week for three months weeding and thinning. Each bed was visited one per week and weeded at a rate that allowed me to complete weeding the bed in 5 hours. Nothing was ever thoroughly weeded.

This left roughly 5000 plants per bed which were allowed to grow with at least a 2” x 2” spacing. Roughly 1000 remained vigorous enough to make a head. Selection of the heads was for a long neck for easy harvest, a tight bead and a slightly purple tinge to the beads. About 100 plants per bed were kept as seed candidates. The others were removed before they could create pollen.
High temperatures (100°F) during flowering provided an extra challenge and about 1/3 of the plants failed to produce seed. Of the remaining plants, the forming seed heads were evaluated for quality and for a blue-green rather than a yellow-green color on the maturing seed pods.

As of August 9, 2009 the 100 chosen plants are maturing seed.

Extreme Gardening

Extreme Gardening

Creating a new broccoli variety – breeding for organic conditions
Selection at 0.01%

The goal: to create a vigorous open pollinated broccoli variety, developed to thrive under organic conditions and able to survive and produce under substantial weed pressure.
I want a broccoli that can be sown into only moderately fertile ground, out-compete weeds and still produce broccoli

The method:

First, a broad and diverse parent stock. The seed for this project was grown out from seed provided by the Oregon State University plant breeding program. This seed is in the public domain. In 2003, as a part of the Farmer’s Cooperative Genome Project, I grew out about 150 plants from this diverse breeding stock provided by the University. I selected about 25 plants and saved seed, part of which was returned to O.S.U. This seed is a diverse population of open pollinated broccoli varieties that had been mixed and grown together. I had 10 lbs. of this seed left over.

Second, a challenging site for the plants to grow: This ground has a high weed seed load. Last year it was in corn, which left it fairly nutritionally deficient. It was disked in and roto-tilled once. It is anything but a clean seed bed. I created 4 “beds”, 6 feet wide and 200 feet long. I fertilized modestly using 100 lbs. of composted chicken manure and 1 yard of raw llama manure on each 6’ x 200’ bed.

Third, a lot of seed. I broadcast – sowed 2 pounds of broccoli seed (200,000+ seeds) on each 6’ x 200’ bed. I planted 800,000 broccoli seeds. These seeds will ultimately be thinned down to 80 or 100 plants. Seeds will have to be both quite vigorous and also lucky to survive in my plot.

Fourth, a lot of weeding and thinning. What came up, as you might guess, is a thick carpet of broccoli seedlings and weeds. The method for weeding and selection I call “rescue weeding”. I don’t want the plants to have too easy a time. Only enough weeding is done to keep the best plants barely ahead of the weeds. Broccoli are thinned to about a 1” x 1” spacing, picking the best from the clumps. Gradually I thin to about a 2” x 2” spacing. I spend the next months rescuing the plants from being overwhelmed and giving the most vigorous an extra inch of space. I never weed anything thoroughly. I only want to give the plants a boost by lessening the competition a little bit. When I get to the end of the patch it is time or past time to start over at the beginning.

I will thin down to the most crowded stand that the plants have a chance to form heads. The remaining 80,000 or so plants will be allowed to try to form a broccoli head. I will continue to thin aggressively, hopefully harvesting many small broccoli for the farmers market. I will make further selection based on the broccoli head, seeking some uniformity and a nice head, although the head will be small because of crowding. In the end, about 100 or so will be kept and allowed to go to seed.

It might work ... it might not. Meanwhile, right now there are still about a quarter of a million little broccoli plants crying out to be rescued. I had better get back to weeding.
-Jonathan Spero May 1, 2009

The Farmer and the Seed

The Farmer and the Seed

What happens when farmers no longer own or control the seeds we plant? Recent changes in Patent law are changing the nature of seed ownership and  are taking this control out of the farmer’s hands.  The first big loser is the independent farmer. Without control of the seeds, the farmer is only a commodity contractor – and only until someone somewhere else manages to produce for a lower price. The second big loser is the consumer, as less and less choice is available and high quality cultivars are dropped in favor of those more easily patented.  Subsistence  farmers and the rural poor worldwide  lose too.  We need to think about the right of a farmer to save seed,  seed patents, and the ownership of the DNA patterns that are the basis of all life.

Plant breeders are protected by the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA). It is important that a plant breeder, an individual or a corporation,  can benefit from the years of effort put into developing and stabilizing a new variety.  PVPA protection allows breeders to benefit from their work.   But a Patent is different.  Rights for a farmer to replant seed on the farm (not for sale)  are protected under the PVPA, not so with a Patent.  Plant genetic material can be to used to develop  new varieties under PVPA.  A patent locks up the DNA and limits any use without permission of the patent holder. 

In the last century, the variety and quality of seed available increased greatly. Public breeders developed varieties that were available to any farmer that could use them. Farmers improved their own local seed stocks, saving the best.

In 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed patented ownership of an oil eating microbe. Prior to this, life forms were not considered “inventions”  and not subject to patent and ownership.   There were no seed patents.   Patents on DNA within the seed, which are now allowed,   fundamentally change the relationship of the farmer and the seed. 

A few big companies are now buying up the local seed companies that once gave us many choices.  Seed lines that cannot be patented, or that are popular  only in one region, are being dropped.  Farmers are forced to sign contracts that prohibit the saving of seed  and can be sued if patented genes are found in plants growing on the farm. Public breeders  (those that remain) now work mostly on patentable traits that will not be  freely distributed. 

Saving the best seed for future planting has been practiced since the dawn of agriculture. It allows us to re-grow a variety that we like. It leads to better crops, adapted to local conditions and farming practices. It allows rural people in poor countries to feed themselves and their communities. 

 We are only beginning to learn how the genome works. Will the DNA sequences, that are the base of all life, be available for broader research and the common good,  or will they be locked up behind patent laws? Do plant Patents help or hurt farmers? In the future, will we have choices in what to plant?   Without the seeds, what is an independent farmer?

- Jonathan Spero