Lesson 1: The Benefits of Diversity, Selection, and Adaptation
We’ve all had that one thing we can’t grow in the garden. Maybe it’s too hot or too cold. We’ve all had years where it seemed like every pest in the world was in our plot. We’ve felt like we didn’t have enough room to grow, or wondered how seeds have gotten so expensive.
Adaptation Gardening is a traditional method of growing. One that will help us get back to a resilient, community-based food systems. Read on to see the seven benefits we’ve found when growing landraces.
Photo by: @ShineandSeed
Plants become resistant to local pests and diseases
Many gardeners struggle to keep plants healthy. Generations of selection by plant breeders under the protection of pesticides and fungicides have caused domestic varieties to lose their natural resistance strategies.
The first priority of landrace gardeners is to select plants that are more resistant to their local pests, so that all subsequent generations will thrive in that ecosystem.
Crops grown with adaptation principles stay healthy even when neighboring (imported) populations get consumed by insects or weakened by diseases.
Grow food that has traits you love
Modern commercial plant breeders select mostly for high yields and long shelf life at the expense of flavor and nutrition, and other traits that small scale growers value.
Adaptation gardeners get to select seeds from the plants that have the traits that they value the most– best flavor, different colors, perfect size, or better yield.
Photo by: @ShineandSeed
Seed saving becomes much less intimidating, even in small gardens
Adaptation Gardeners have the ability to taste everything before deciding to save seeds, which means they will make better decisions than any seed breeder or company can make, for their own tastes and growing conditions.
The high isolation distances normally required for heirlooms and open-pollinated varieties mean gardeners often think they can’t save seeds from a smaller space. In landrace gardening, cross-pollinating becomes a strength instead of a weakness.
Adaptation gardening may be the only way to achieve seed independence in small garden spaces.
Crops can adapt to adverse local conditions
Many gardeners are unable to grow varieties that they want to, because of difficult environmental conditions.
Extreme heat, cold or wet summer, season too short, or disease pressure, can cause gardeners to give up altogether.
Most commercial varieties are grown for average conditions, and cannot thrive in the presence of some form of adversity.
But with adaptation gardening, growing plants that thrive in adverse conditions becomes possible. It doesn’t take very long, progress happens in the second growing season, and gets better every year.
Local adaptation is fastest with high genetic diversity and intense selection pressure.
Photo by: Gregg Muller
Independence from seed companies and agri-businesses
Recent seed shortages at many seed companies have shown that we shouldn’t assume our favorite varieties will always be available.
Adaptation gardeners avoid reliance on expensive, insecure and internationally-sourced inputs like perlite, bamboo, coco-coir, and materials which may damage local and distant environments.
Growing in a landrace system will eliminate a gardener’s dependence on any company, or the supply chain in general.
Adaptation Agriculture is better for the planet
For generations, plants have been selected under high input environments, which has caused them to need high amounts of fertilizers/compost and pesticides in order to thrive.
By growing landraces, the need for fertilizers and pesticides disappears because seeds are selected from plants that thrive under low nutrient conditions.
These are the plants that are able to recruit microbial partners, and can thrive with less of everything while still producing high yielding nutritious fruits and vegetables.
New locally adapted varieties bring back the lost genetic diversity in our food system
94% of the seed diversity has disappeared (that we know about) in the US, with a similar pattern happening all over the world.
Most of the remaining seeds are patented hybrids with an extremely narrow genetic base. This puts our food security at risk.
In industrialized countries, it used to be the norm to grow locally adapted, genetically diverse landraces.
Let’s start rebuilding lost genetic diversity by making local seeds the new normal again.
