Legalities of Seed Saving

General Discussions
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I’ve been reading Carol Deppe’s “Breed You Own Vegitable Varieties” recently and I came across a passage which answered many questions I’ve had about the legality of seed saving and selling. It was written in 2000 so hopefully it is still correct.

“You can grow your own seed from protected varieties as long as you don’t sell it. You can sell seed of your own varieties without protecting them. You can use protected varieties in developing your own. You are not allowed to use a protected variety to make hybrids to sell comercially, however, nor may you merely select from protected varieties without doing any crosses. But you can cross a protected variety to something else and then work with the progeny to develop your own variety. And you can use hybrids in any way you want. They are protected by secrecy, not by law”

This pertains to the US only. She goes on to say that in Europe “there are laws that prevent the sale of everything that isn’t on a special list”.

I really recomend her book for those that havent read it. It is definitely a very different thought process than Joseph’s “Landrace Gardening” book. It’s more about setting up controlled trials, taking lots of notes and producing stable varieties.

I still like landrace methodology better. Seems much more artistic and care free. Plus more resilient and sustainable in the long run due to genetic diversity.

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You also have to consider Utility Patents. Example: there’s a patent on the specific gene(s?) in the GMO Purple Tomato that code for the purple flesh, and that means you can’t use the Purple Tomato to breed your own unique variety of purple-fleshed tomato and sell seeds for it, since the gene sequence for purple flesh is what’s being protected. Any other GMOs that make it into public circulation (as opposed to large-scale commercial farming offerings) will likely also have utility patents that prevent using them for breeding.

Edit: To clarify, because I realized the above was probably a bit fuzzy on my point… Utility Patents don’t allow for breeding use… the standard Plant Variety Protection does.

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I originally thought Carol Deppe’s philosophy was very different from Joseph Lofthouse’s, but by the time I read her third book (I highly recommend you pick up The Resilient Gardener and The Tao of Vegetable Gardening, too!), I realized that there are a lot of similarities between their philosophies.

Their preferred methods are very different – lots of documentation and detailed control versus almost none :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: – and there is a difference in the end goal, as well. Joseph Lofthouse prefers to keep his population a diverse hybrid swarm, whereas Carol Deppe sees a hybrid swarm as a means to an end from which she selects down to her favorite phenotype(s) and stabilizes them.

Nevertheless, they both follow very similar principles, including highly valuing genetic diversity, and Carol Deppe does an excellent job of explaining the details about why it’s so important in her books.

One thing I find particularly neat about her approach is that, even though she wants a finished stable variety at the end, she does not want it to be inbred – she might use inbreeding as a tool, but in at least one case, she kept four separate lines of the same cross, inbred them all until she’d gotten rid of traits she didn’t want, and then crossed them all together at the end, in order to bring back all the diversity that was compatible with her goals. That’s a really neat way to have your cake and eat it, too.

Joseph Lofthouse doesn’t do that in a “keeping lots of records” way, but he does do that – by swapping seeds with other people who are selecting for the same traits he values. Same philosophy, and a very similar end result – it’s just a difference in the ways they choose to do things.

I think it’s cool to compare their methods, because it demonstrates that there are many different valid methods – and end goals! – that can spring from people with different personalities learning some basic principles and deciding how they want to use them. I find that very neat.

Another thing that’s worth mentioning under the subject of legalities is OSSI.

The Open Source Seed Initiative is enforced copyleft, and many freelance plant breeders (including Carol Deppe and Joseph Lofthouse) use it. Copyleft, in case you’re unfamiliar with the term, is the opposite of copyright:

OSSI varieties can be freely used for any purpose except for restricting other people’s rights to freely use whatever you’ve created to make their own things.

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I agree! Simplicity for the win! I think both approaches are good. I love to breed as an artist but also going full geek mode nerdy out.

AWESOME! This is such a smart technique, you are basically creating the “plant species” you want in your cross :grin:. I was wondering if grafting also achieves the same thing? If I have an Albino Black Raspberry & want that trait to be more prevelant in my Raspberry landrace, I can graft 1 in every Patch so more of the Abbino Raspberry pollen gets pollinated everywhere.

I think it works better for trees tho, makes me think of the 1 Prunus tree with 40 different kinds of fruit. I bet the seeds from that tree make awesome Hybrids.

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Heh, yeah, I have a plan for a raspberry landrace, too. I’m happy with the thornless raspberries that are available right now, so I don’t need to do anything much with them – just plant seeds from my favorites. But sweetleaf raspberry has thorns, and I really like the fact that the leaves can be used as an artificial sweetener, like stevia. I’m thinking I’d like to grow it and cross it back and forth with my thornless raspberries until I have a thornless sweetleaf raspberry population with tasty fruits as well as tasty leaves. That would be awesome. :heart:

Actually, that’s a really interesting question. If you graft several different species (that are graft compatible) onto the same rootstock, while the low-key DNA swapping between scions and rootstock make the scions more compatible with each other for sexual reproduction? I have to imagine it won’t hurt.

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Would grafting thornless varieties onto sweetleaf rootstock produce sweeter leaves?

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Ooh. That’s an interesting idea . . .