We must save seeds.

[roody]

Bountiful Gardens, a local seed supplier, sent me an email with the following link. We must protect our seeds from Monsanto et al.
http://www.opensourceseedinitiative.org/

[In_The_Wind]

1. I agree.

[roody]

2. I added the link.

[roody]

3. Link to Bountiful Gardens-

http://hosted.vresp.com/218973/085895730b/306000131/ee8eac7444/

[In_The_Wind]

5. The list is impressive.

Everything I grow is in flowerpots.

[roody]

6. Pots are easy to water. I use them too.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

4. K&R. Fight back against corporate domination. Especially when the corporation is

as greedy as Monsanto.

[NickB79]

7. This won't work with conventional hybrids though

Which are many of the most popular garden vegetables: sweet corn, tomatoes, acorn squash, etc.

I tried very hard to do the all-heirloom and/or open-pollinated route for several years, saving my own seeds, etc. This year, my heirloom tomatoes with no bred-in resistance were devastated by blight, and despite resorting to fungicides, they're withering away as we speak.

Similarly, my open-pollinated acorn squash don't yield nearly as well as hybrids I used to plant in the past, even with similar growing conditions.

On the other hand, I've had WONDERFUL results saving seeds from watermelon, peas, peppers, and cucumbers.

I've learned to save what I can, but also to realize that, if I want the most food production as possible, to use varieties I can't save on my own. It sucks, but it is what it is.

[BronxBoy]

10. What you and other posters...

have posted about hybrids and heirlooms are true. We are experimenting with grafter tomatoes this year but I don't know how realistic it would be to think grafting will become a common thing among home and small scale gardener.

What I hope this program will also create are great hybrid varieties that will be available in the public domain sans licensing restrictions. Don't know if that will materialize but I hope so

[Treant]

8. For heirloom plants

this works beautifully. For F1 hybrids, not so much as they're inconsistent in terms of what the children produce and the children can be much weaker than the parents.

I preserve five heirloom flowers in my garden via seed collection. I don't bother with the basic zinnia as they're hybrid and the daughters are unpredictable in terms of characteristics.

[geardaddy]

9. K and R

[belltower]

11. sorry, but seeds won't save us

Here's an excellent summation of material from http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/, that clearly states the timeline for our extinction. It's happening now and will surely be abundantly clear in time for 2016.

[TeamPooka]

13. Well, we had a good run. nt

[belltower]

15. surely you jest

as it's pathetically easy to argue that "we" white guys are the cause.

[REP]

12. Have seed capsules forming on many of my species orchids

[TeamPooka]

14. I hope they are saving cannabis seeds too. nt