USDA National Plant Germplasm System has been DOGEd

[MarkReed]

I think GRIN was always more for academic, which was later captured by big ag. Now I suppose it will soon be actual corporate property similar I suppose to what happened with the seed banks in Iraq. In any case, individuals can probably just go ahead and write it off. I only found out about GRIN about ten years ago and have only gotten a little bit of seed from there.

I’ve got seeds from SSE for fifty years, most of my crops that I’ve saved seed of for decades originated from there and from other companies that were still around in the 1970s and 80s. I hope that SSE survives and grows but recently it has had some counterproductive competition with a never-ending stream of save the world ideas with their constant calls to buy the books, the DVDs, the podcasts and don’t forget to donate now. I think we would be much better off if that money and effort went to supporting and growing the SSE and other established outfits like Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Sandhill Preservation Center.

Recent claims that there is something wrong with planting heirloom seeds is somehow wrong, doesn’t help either and it isn’t true. With heirlooms I can pick out varieties that fit my preferences and if they do cross pollinate in my garden, I’m fine with that because I wouldn’t have planted one that doesn’t fit my preferences in the first place.

Landrace seeds I believe, are mostly a fiction. Only species that easily cross by wind or insects really respond to that practice and even if it has been done by someone, they are still adapted to someplace else and they had to start with heirlooms that already would produce seeds in that place. I wouldn’t expect a landrace from a distant place to do any better in my garden than an heirloom except with the heirloom or an F1 for that matter, I have some idea of what I’m planting.

If GRIN is being lost to the masses, then it’s time to redouble efforts to support other organizations and since they may be at risk too, even more important for folks that want to keep gardening to increase and secure their own individual seed banks.

[markwkidd]

I deal with the USDA on a regular basis, although not GRIN specifically. It’s a huge agency and there are many parts I’ve never interacted with, but I would say my experience in working with dozens of different staff and several different programs is that overall it’s as easy to work with as any other institution.

USDA staff seem generally like the people I’ve coordinated with at other institutions like private philanthropy or the local schools and colleges: they want to help or work with farmers and it’s even possibly their job, but they haven’t always been trained or given support for working with the small and independent. Therefore I’ve helped farmers access USDA programs, and I sometimes serve as a paid grant reviewer for the USDA.

Without active support from agencies like USDA and NRCS in Eastern Kentucky over the last ten years, I would confidently state that 50% or more of today’s market farms in our area would not exist at all.

[MarkReed]

I didn’t think about the other stuff USDA does or did. I have a nephew that grows about a thousand acres of non-GMO corn to export to Japan. I haven’t talked to him in a while, but I imagine he is a little nervous right now. I do know he expressed his support for such changes a few months ago, whether he knew it or not.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@YrtheArts

I was never a fan of GRIN’s gatekeeper model. This is the obvious Achilles’ heel of that approach.

Same here, I found the Gatekeeper model very odd, I like the GoingToSeed Distribution Model way much better! Hmm… maybe there is hope. If GRIN is going to be shut down, why don’t they just donate all the seeds to GoingToSeed & other Non-Profit Organizations?
It’s not like Bureaucracy is just gonna burn all the seeds up without them ever getting a chance to be planted right? Right!?

@YrtheArts

Understand this for what it is. A complete hostile takeover. Now is the time to take the steps suggested in Joseph’s book, to safeguard your seeds against loss and destruction. Decentralize.

I agree, I knew this day would eventually come. I pray the GoingToSeed Community stays alive, strong & well. It really is a Decentralized Living Seed Bank, we’ve made something very special. I’m thankful to be part of this community!

@UnicornEmily

Yes, this really, really demonstrates how important decentralized seed saving is. We need something just like an open source GRIN. We need it really, really, really badly.

I really think GoingToSeed is the best replacement we have for GRIN, it’s a living seed bank that is decentralized. Our community is slowly growing & growing to become something like GRIN but better & without the “Gate Keeping”.

@UnicornEmily

I suspect people growing their own food may eventually be something the US government actively attacks, precisely because it makes them less dependent on the government and thereby easier to control.

Yikes… This runs counter to the “Victory Gardens” I’ve heard about .
Honestly I think the best way to combat this is to build a strong communities like what we have here. Gardening with a Community is fun & something we would do even when everything is fine but oh man… does it pay it’s worth when things aren’t fine.
I like preparedness living not because I’m scared but because it’s really fun & meaningful! It’s just my hobby/lifestyle also doubles as an insurance.

@YrtheArts

Seed Savers’ Exchange is sort of meant to be a decentralized nonprofit alternative to GRIN.

ooh! That’s right, altho I never understood how their system works thus never did any “Seed Exchanges” unlike here on GTS where it’s easy!
I think more decentralization is good, Seed Saver’s Exchange, GoingToSeed, Local Seed Libraries, and many other small seed shops all help preserve valuable germaplasm.
Lets hope good fills the void left behind GRIN instead of greed.

@AdelePoe

I think staying under the radar for as long as possible is a good strategy, to give us as much time as possible to learn guerilla gardening and learn the wild native edibles, as you said, and time to get as many people as possible on board.

I also agree! This is a good strategy to pair with GoingToSeed! More decentralization is better even if some of it has to go into hiding.

I actually tried to do some Gardening on Land I don’t own, it got sprayed & deer ate everything in the other spot . I was hoping to bulk up my seed numbers & actually be able to send some seeds other than wild edibles to GoingToSeed. Sadly, I’ve learn the hard way that I need to find a better location to Ninja Garden on.

I do a lot of Foraging exactly because I have no land to garden on. I really hope I can Garden where I forage but there’s a reason why gardens fail there, everything I forage is strongly scented or thorny because of deer which delicious salad greens, Beans, Squash, Melons, Tomatoes aren’t.

@AdelePoe

I have some wonderful public land nearby, but I can’t bring myself to forage it, because I worry about how it may be “managed.”

Observe how it’s “Managed”, see which spots get sprayed or not, many trees don’t carry much herbicides into their fruit especially if they weren’t directly spraying the tree branches.
I’ve foraged for so many Mulberries in Urban/Sub-urban areas, even where things are “Managed”. Ironically urban areas are where I found the Feral Urban Tomato & many other interesting wild edibles (Lots of weeds are delicious!)

@MashaZ

Seed Savers’ Exchange is great, but I don’t think it has 62,000 varieties of wheat.

Really!? GRIN had that many??? hmm… is it still 62,000 varities captured if you cross them all?
I’m thinking How many varieites genetics are captured in the GTS Seed Packet mix? Does it compare?

@MarkReed

Recent claims that there is something wrong with planting heirloom seeds is somehow wrong, doesn’t help either and it isn’t true.

huh??? Is this because of Landrace Gardening or F1 Hybrid Seeds being better? I thought it was quite the Opposite seeing how BakerCreek Heriloom seeds growing more popular as the interest for heirloom seeds grows. Or are we including the landrace seeds to pair with the heirlooms?

@markwkidd

Therefore I’ve helped farmers access USDA programs, and I sometimes serve as a paid grant reviewer for the USDA.

oh wow! That’s awesome! Great way to make good connections!

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

I doubt the government is going to burn all the seeds. Now, sticking them all into a room-temperature-or-hotter warehouse in boxes and forgetting about them for 100 years . . . that wouldn’t surprise me.

But yeah, I fully agree. If GRIN is able to downsize by giving its collections to nonprofits to continue to propagate and share, that would be great. Nonprofits may even do a better job.

You’ve hit the nail on the head with describing community. It’s wonderful to have when things are good, and it’s even better to have when things are bad. Having this online community is amazing, and I think we also all need to be trying to join (or build) a local community, too.

I think perhaps Mark Reed may be thinking about overzealous people who start trying to make landrace gardening a new extremely prescriptivist orthodoxy with its own needlessly strict rules (despite the fact that Joseph Lofthouse keeps on saying, “But but but please don’t!”). People like that can easily jump to the opposite extreme and assume heirloom varieties are some kind of enemy . . . and they really aren’t. The end goal of a landrace, for many gardeners, is to create an heirloom to match their own desires. Heirlooms and landraces are not only compatible, they’re almost the same thing! Just in different stages of development.

Usually the wisest path forward includes moderation and being willing to use all tools and approaches in whatever times and places they make the most sense.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@UnicornEmily

I doubt the government is going to burn all the seeds.

I don’t know, our government bureaucracy has done stupider things. Sadly They’ll might excuse it with the words “It’s just protocol”, seen it happen too many times. I’m just glad & Thankful GTS Acquired some of the Melons Seeds from there to bulk up on before they get fully dodged.

Does this mean GTS won’t be able to acquire any more seeds form GRIN? Will we have to tell Elon on Twitter ?

@UnicornEmily

Heirlooms and landraces are not only compatible, they’re almost the same thing! Just in different stages of development.

BINGO!!! You hit the nail on the head, there really is no fundamental difference, heirlooms & landraces are just on different spectrums. The deciding factor is what “True to type” means to you as the gardener. Both Landraces & Herilooms are “True to Type” of what they’ve been selected for.

[JinTX (J. Youngman)]

@VeggieSavage

our government bureaucracy has done stupider things.

Like the way millions of pounds of the Michigan cherry crop get left to rot so the comercial price of cherries doesn’t get too cheap.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

oh my… well do they at least grow them into trees?

[MichaelFomhar]

Unfortunately GRIN doesn’t grow out every accesion on a rotation, mostly its just the most requested germplasm that gets fresh growouts. So it might as well be out in a shed. I have a couple different phaseolus species that hadn’t been grown since the 80’s and 90’s!!! Like how! Just packed and shipped my way in the standard quantity envelope, or they run so low that its “sorry I can only approve 5 seeds per accesion”. Don’t get me wrong, I love them as a resource and they’re nice people like you or me, but it really hasn’t been managed well the last few decades. These seeds need to be grown and distributed, otherwise they’re no good to anybody withering away in a croom drawer for 30 years. I’m starting the habit of regenerating seed before using them in my projects just because I don’t know if I’ll ever get ahold of them again, and I can share them with others who will steward them to the next crazy plant guy/gal/non-binary pal regardless if they work for big ag or are a hobby breeder.

[JinTX (J. Youngman)]

No, they weren’t allowed to use them for anything.

And we still end up importing more cherries from other countries.

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

That’s sad.

[AdelePoe]

@JinTX

Like the way millions of pounds of the Michigan cherry crop get left to rot so the comercial price of cherries doesn’t get too cheap.

I believe this sort of thing happens a lot more than we realize, it’s just not talked about.

As a community, we need to watch for Things That Bring Division. As an example, because I’m interested in it, my you tube feed is full of lots of things permaculture. Then something called Syntropic agriculture pops up. It sounds interesting and sounds a lot like permaculture, so I listened to it. It was all about how syntropic is better than permaculture, and included lies about what permaculture embodied. A second video, same thing. The concepts sounded identical to me, the main difference that I can guess about, is permaculture is very grass roots while syntropic sounds very university (read university as gov’nt school). Divide, sow doubt, sow confusion, take control. Not saying the syntropic info wasn’t good, but why bash permaculture? So, all that as an example, and what brought it to mind was the comment about landrace vs heirloom, and what is or isn’t good. If Someone is trying to hijack the term “landrace” then the time is perfect for all of us to begin using adaptive gardening, or adaptive agriculture.

All of that to say, just be on guard, and every time you find yourself asking one of those rhetorical questions, like, what were they thinking, realize that there is a real answer to that question and we probably won’t like it.

In other business…
About foraging on public lands, I will forage fence lines and road ditches, because I can see what happens there. It’s the large areas of land where there’s no way to see what happens that I stay away from. Also I’m fortunate to have friends with land and we sometimes forage together. I’m working to get as much wildness in my back yard as I can while trying to get my front beautiful so no one looks in the back.

[JinTX (J. Youngman)]

That’s really interesting about the way you found out about syntropic agriculture.
I think I first heard about it through the greendreams youtube channel with Pete Kanaris and got a totally different first impression.

I tend to ignore negative biases, and “university” politics and try to look at it all as resources of potentially useful information.

Holistic Management / Biodynamic Agriculture is another one I see heavily debated with permaculture. But it is really interesting, and almost comes from the “other side” with a lot spiritually influenced ideas that turn off a lot of people.

[AdelePoe]

@JinTX

and got a totally different first impression.

I will back pedal here, and admit my actual knowledge is limited, and the actual information seemed good. But there was no doubt the two videos I watched were setting up one system against the other. My word is caution wasn’t with one source of information against another, but rather those who would twist good information to the detriment of other information. We are all here to gather as much knowledge as we can, from all sources. So when someone starts saying heirloom is bad, landrace is good, or landrace is bad, heirloom is good, little flashing lights go off in my head and I start wondering what their goal is in saying what they say. That’s all. And I probably say too much, my apologies.

[JinTX (J. Youngman)]

It makes sense.

They are all just variations of the same basic ideas. I don’t see why it would need to be a competition. And I don’t really understand the strict rules some people apply to each method either. Just try different things and use whatever works best for you.

Even in some of the online permaculture communities they get a little cultish with the “what is and isn’t permaculture” arguments.
I like that the GTS community is so open minded and seems to be a nice mix of ideas and personalities.