Evaluation Program Highlights for 2012

The Evaluation Program

Maintaining and distributing unique heirloom and open-pollinated seeds is the primary goal of the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) gene bank. The Evaluation Program is an important link between maintaining varieties at Heritage Farm and getting them into the hands of gardeners, chefs, and farmers.

The Evaluation Program, which is only three years old, was started with the financial support from people like you. The program allows us to collect data on a variety’s traits throughout its life cycle. This data includes characteristics such as plant height, flower color, days to maturity, and fruit size.

• In 2012 staff recorded more than 40,000 evaluation descriptors on over 1,000 different accessions.

Bringing Back Food Culture

The program also evaluates culinary usage—incredibly important in a world of unsustainable eating and forgotten food cultures. Modern fruits and vegetables bred for shipping and uniformity lack the diversity seen in heirloom varieties—like beets, potatoes, cabbages, and apples that store for months in a root cellar; horticultural beans harvested between the snap and dry bean phases for their higher protein content; and melons best suited for baking. The forgotten traits in these varieties are the building blocks to a sustainable food system.

The information collected through the evaluation program serves several purposes. It allows us to:

• Increase our knowledge about each variety and make that information available to gardeners.
• Make informed management decisions about the collection by developing a comprehensive profile of each accession.
• Reintroduce unique and rare varieties into the marketplace.

From the Preservation Gardens

For the first time ever, Seed Savers Exchange is offering a collection of varieties ‘From the Preservation Gardens’ in our catalog this year. These varieties were selected because of their interesting histories, unique characteristics, and popularity with staff—a direct result of the Evaluation Program.

• Join us in our efforts to preserve our garden heritage for future generations to come. With your financial support for the Evaluation Program, we can rediscover our food culture—one variety at a time.

A tax-deductible donation to Seed Savers Exchange will help us continue to maintain genetic diversity through projects like the Evaluation Program. Support our effort by making a donation or becoming a member online today, or call us at (563) 382-5990 (M-F, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm Central Time).

Thank you for your support,

John Torgrimson Executive Director

P.S. Donate $150 or more before December 31, 2012 and receive a free Seed Savers Exchange 2013 Calendar, which offers a beautiful glimpse of nature's seed bounty at Heritage Farm near Decorah, Iowa, where every seed has a story to tell.

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2012 Evaluation Highlights

Horticultural Beans (Shelling Beans)

Eating beans from the pod, when the beans are fully expanded but not yet dry, is becoming a lost culinary tradition in America. The plump, wet, beans do not store well, and they are difficult to shell mechanically because the tender beans cannot tolerate rough handling. For these reasons, shelling beans have been shunned by industrial agriculture. However, the flavor is rich and shelling beans are richer in nutrients than dry beans. We added a horticultural bean taste test to our 2012 bean evaluation and found that most beans taste good as shelling beans, and some taste really good! Many that performed well in our taste test were not necessarily known as shelling beans historically. For example, “Bessie” (Bean 6042) has been passed down maternally in Frances Sullivan’s family for over a century, each generation using it primarily as a green bean for fresh eating and canning.

Tomato 324 ‘D. Jena Lee’s Golden Girl’

This variety really caught our attention in the 2012 taste test. We described it as having “excellent robust flavor, sweet and slightly tart, low-medium acidity, firm and meaty texture but still juicy, great as a slicing tomato.” Curious about the variety, we investigated its history and discovered that it is mis-named in our collection and should be called “Djena Lee’s Golden Girl.” We are not the first to notice its outstanding flavor. It is promoted by Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste, and won the Chicago Fair’s taste test 10 years in a row in the 1920s and 1930s. Though historically, women played a central role in developing and improving varieties in America’s gardens, Djena Lee was one of the few female plant breeders who enjoyed recognition for her efforts in early 20th century America.

Kohlrabi 44 ‘Giant Czechoslovakian’

Most kohlrabi reach market maturity in 50-60 days and quickly become woody if left in the field. For that reason, we complete our market mature evaluation at 60 days. One variety in our evaluation grow-out, ‘Giant Czechoslovakian,’ did not form a kohlrabi head at 60 days. We thought it did not care for the spring weather. But in our fall grow-out of the same varieties, it again produced no stem-swelling at 60 days. We began to question whether it was really a kohlrabi, or if our seed-stock was compromised by crossing with another Brassica oleracea. We researched similarly named varieties in commercial catalogs, promoted as a 130 day maturity kohlrabi that does not get woody even when large. Then we went back to the long-forgotten spring planting and found enormous kohlrabis! Harvested at 176 days, they tasted great!

 Squash 5080 ‘Dostal Cucumber’ Squash

This squash’s oblong shape, size, and dark green mature color make it look somewhat like a cucumber. A staff favorite as a winter squash, this year we evaluated this pepo squash as a summer squash as well.  To our surprise, ‘Dostal’ turned out to be a favorite 2012 summer squash - with its dense flesh and mildly sweet flavor. It went on to win accolades again in the 2012 winter squash taste evaluation for its buttery, smooth texture and complex, rich flavor. ‘Dostal’ has proven that we cannot make assumptions about the versatile varieties in our collection based on the limitations of more modern, highly specialized varieties.

Seed Savers Exchange Member Profile - Russ Crow (IL CR R)

Each year, hundreds of gardeners from all corners of the world share heirloom vegetable and fruit varieties they’ve collected from their own backyards.

Within Seed Savers Exchange they’re known as Listed Members, the core of our seed exchange and the source of more than 10,000 varieties that are listed in our annual Yearbook. To other SSE members, they’re often known individually by their listed member code (IL CR R).

Each month, we’ll be profiling one of our listed members in order to give our audience a closer look at some of the individuals responsible for preserving America’s endangered garden heritage.

I had the opportunity to interview Russ Crow in the spring of 2012. Russ was a part of Seed Savers Exchange back when the organization was just getting started in the mid-1970’s. Though he took a break from gardening in the 90s, Russ has since returned to one of his horticultural passions—beans—and currently serves as an important informational resource to our seed historian.

The following audio clips describe Russ’s discovery and subsequent stabilization of a new bean variety discovered in his garden in 1977, as well as his initial forays into seed saving and the reason he continues saving seeds himself.

Blue Jay bean (Russ Crow audio) [audio: http://blog.seedsavers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/russcrowbluejay.mp3|titles=Russ Crow - Blue Jay Bean]

How I Started Saving Seeds (Russ Crow audio) [audio: http://blog.seedsavers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/russcrowhowistartedseedsaving.mp3|titles=Russ Crow - How I Started Saving Seeds]

To learn how to access the largest heirloom seed catalog in the world and browse over 12,000 listings from Russ and hundreds of other members, visit seedsavers.org.

Evaluating Hundreds of Heirloom Seeds

Each year at Heritage Farm we grow a portion of our collection—family heirlooms passed down generationally and given to Seed Savers Exchange for safekeeping.

Part of the responsibility that comes with maintaining this unique collection of fruit and vegetable varieties is understanding as much as we can about each one.  To gain this understanding, every summer—in addition to growing varieties that are in need of refreshed or increased stock—we also grow a portion of our collection for evaluation purposes.

This year we are growing more than 400 varieties of heirloom seed in our evaluation gardens—from amaranth to watermelon—with beet, carrot, celery, collard, corn, cowpea, cucumber, eggplant, kale, kohlrabi, leek, lettuce, lima, melon, mustard, okra, pea, pepper, radish, rutabaga, squash, Swiss chard, tomato, and turnip in between.  

Why do we evaluate these varieties?

The evaluation crew spends their summer documenting and describing each variety we grow. The crew collects data on traits such as plant height, flower color, days to maturity, and fruit size, to name a few. We also evaluate how a variety might do in the marketplace, considering taste and culinary usage. For example, this year we are evaluating 40 varieties of beans and will classify them as snap beans, shelling beans, or dry beans.

Evaluation data not only helps us make informed collection management decisions, it also gives us the information we need to write detailed plant descriptions. Plant descriptions are key to promoting our collection in the Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook and other publications, increasing the distribution of collection varieties to our members’ gardens and bringing more active participants into our preservation efforts. It is our hope to see more and more of our collection being grown, enjoyed, and preserved in gardens across the country.

We are one of the few organizations doing this important work with heirlooms.  And with thousands of varieties in our collection, this is work we do each summer, year after year.

You can help by supporting this work essential to our preservation efforts.

 A tax-deductible donation to Seed Savers Exchange will help us continue to maintain genetic diversity through projects like the evaluation program. Support our effort by making a donation or becoming a member online today, or call us at (563) 382-5990 (M-F, 8:30 am - 5:30 pm Central Time).

Thank you for helping us maintain these heirloom varieties for future generations to come.

John Torgrimson                                                              Diane Ott Whealy Executive Director                                                           Co-founder and Vice President

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Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization, with a mission to conserve and promote America's culturally diverse but endangered garden and food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants.

Life Cycles

The Teaching Garden at Seed Savers Exchange demonstrates important seed saving concepts. Throughout the growing season, we'll discuss these concepts by taking a closer look at different beds in this garden. In a previous blog post, we looked at How Your Plants Pollinate. Our second stop on the tour is at the Life Cycle beds.

A plant can have one of three different life cycles depending on when it produces flowers and seed: annual, biennial, or perennial. To properly save seed, it's important to know the life cycles of the plants in your garden - it's not always as obvious as it seems!

The first bed contains some annual plant types: lettuce, radish, and pea (pictured below). An annual plant will germinate, grow, flower, and fruit in one growing season. When an annual has finished producing seed, the plant dies. To flower, lettuce will grow a large flower stalk and shed the lower leaves, producing white fluffy seeds. Radish roots enlarge, becoming too bitter and tough for eating. The above-ground radish plant will become big and bushy, producing white and purple flowers and edible seed pods. Pea plants will decline after flowering has finished, and the seeds will harden as the pods and vines turn yellow and dry out.

The second bed contains kale, Swiss chard, and onion, examples of biennial plant types. A biennial plant completes its life cycle over two growing seasons. In the first year, the plant focuses on vegetative growth by producing leaves and roots that store energy and nutrients. Most biennials (i.e. onion and kale) are harvested for eating during the first year of their life cycle. During winter, the plant conserves energy for the next growing season when it will flower and produce seed. Because biennials must overwinter, extra steps should be taken in colder climates to prevent damage to the underground parts. In this bed (pictured on the right), the onion were overwintered with straw mulch and are now flowering. The kale and Swiss chard will not flower and produce a seed crop until next year.

A perennial has a continuous growth cycle that can persist for many growing seasons. In general, a perennial will flower and fruit every year, but a tremendous amount of variation exists within perennials. Some perennial plants are woody and will flower and fruit after several years of juvenile growth, while others are herbaceous and die back every winter to newly flower and fruit in the spring. "Tender perennials" are very sensitive to cold temperatures and are grown as annuals in most climates. Several of our beds feature tender perennials like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and okra that will die back at the end of the season due to cold weather.

Below you will find a list of common annuals and biennials, with tender perennials listed among the annuals. Use the following list as a guide, and refer to Suzanne Ashworth's Seed to Seed for information on specific crop types.

Until next time, happy gardening!

Annuals: amaranth, bean, broccoli*, corn, cowpea, cucumber, eggplant, fava, gourd, ground cherry, lettuce, lima, melon, mustard, okra, pea, peanut, pepper, poppy, potato, radish (non-daikon), runner bean, sorghum, spinach, squash, sunflower, tomatillo, tomato, watermelon

Biennials: beet, broccoli*, Brussels sprout, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, chicory, Chinese cabbage, collard, endive, kale, kohlrabi, leek, onion, parsley, parsnip, radish (daikon), rutabaga, Swiss chard, turnip

*Broccoli is a biennial crop, but short season varieties act as annuals when planted early in the spring.

Everything You Need to Know About Radishes

Flowering Radishes at Heritage Farm

The radishes at Heritage Farm are in full bloom! Our flowering beauties may no longer be edible, but they are well on their way to producing seed. Luckily, most radishes grow quickly and will produce seed in one season.

Cool Radishes Radishes are wonderfully diverse with many different colors, shapes and sizes! Spring and summer varieties can be pink, red, white, golden, or purple. They can be shaped like bulbs, be more elongated like fingers, or even taper like carrots. Winter varieties are much larger, often black, and need a longer growing season to mature. Daikon radishes, an Oriental winter type, have long white roots prized for their crisp and tender flesh. Some radishes, such as the Rat-Tailed radish, are grown for their edible seed pods rather than their roots. The entire seed pod is edible, and has a lighter radish bite. Who knew?

This season, we grew a very special radish in the Diversity Garden named 'Colony Summerrettig'. Charles Hoehnle of Homestead, Iowa donated the seed of this variety in 1995. It originated from the Amana Colonies of central Iowa, which were settled in 1856 by a group of German Pietists. These settlers lived a self-sufficient communal life until the mid-1930s. This radish was grown in the colony gardens, prized for its purple roots and ability to reseed for a fall crop. Our planting in the Diversity Garden grew to be quite big before flowering!

How to Grow Radishes Not only are radishes easy and quick to grow, but you can plant them all season long. Direct seed radishes 1" apart and 1/2" deep as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring. Rows should be 12" apart for proper root development. When seedlings are about 1" tall, thin to 2-3" apart. Most radishes are ready to eat when their root tops peak out of the soil. Plant successively every 2-3 weeks for a constant supply of radishes.

How to Eat Radishes Radishes have a spicy bite that makes a wonderful addition to salads and veggie platters. If you're looking for something different, try sweet and sour radish pickles! Put sliced radishes in a jar with green onions or garlic, and enough vinegar, sugar, and oil to cover. Store in the refrigerator for up to eight hours, making sure to shake the jar every so often. When chilled, you'll have a tangy treat to enjoy that cuts some of the radish bite but packs a bunch of flavor!

How to Save Radish Seed Most radish varieties are annuals that will flower and produce seed within one growing season. They are insect-pollinated out-breeders, meaning they will cross with any and all varieties of wild and domesticated varieties. Varieties should be separated by 1/2 mile or more to prevent cross-pollination. If distance or isolation is not possible in your own garden plant a single variety, and be aware if neighboring gardens have different radish varieties flowering at the same time.

Because radishes require that pollen be transferred from one plant to another for successful pollination, a fairly large population size is best for good seed production. Seed pods will develop on the large flower stalks (up to 3′) and tan as the seed matures and plant begins to dry. Harvest the seed stalks when all parts are fully dry. Seeds are tricky to remove from dried seed pods and may require a bit of force.

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Let us know what your radishes look like this season! If you're looking for something different, check out the Seed Savers Exchange collection of radishes in the online catalog. Happy gardening!

Small talk, big numbers: A look at peas with the SSE Preservation staff

If you’re trying to make small talk at Heritage Farm, don’t ask someone from the SSE preservation staff how the garden is looking. I found this out for myself a few weeks ago while fetching some coffee from the break room.

“How are those peas looking, Tor?” I asked innocently while filling my mug.

“Well, that really depends on what you’re looking for,” he replied, grabbing a pea magnet off the refrigerator. Two cups of coffee and a pea anatomy lesson later, I started to understand his frank response.

While we collect characterization data during most grow-outs, we use the term "evaluation" when varieties are being grown specifically with the intent of collecting characterization data.  In 2011 we have several evaluations in progress, including okra, peas, eggplants and beans. In the case of peas,  the preservation staff measures 17 traits of each of the 79 varieties grown for the collection here at Heritage Farm in 2011. Six of those traits require 10 individual samples. That’s 5,609 individual measurements done by hand—and that's just for the "fully expanded immature pods" life stage. The preservation staff takes measurements at five different life stages throughout the  growing season and different traits are measured at each stage. Considering this myriad of variables, it’s no wonder Tor didn’t have a quick response when I asked him how his peas were looking. But I probably should have expected as much from a guy who gardens with a laptop!

But of course all these numbers have a much more significant purpose than derailing efforts at small talk. The preservation department webpage explains this importance:

“Each time seed is regenerated, the potential for genetic change exists. Plant evaluation is one way of knowing that seed harvested is true to the seed that was planted. Each variety we plant is evaluated at several stages throughout the growing season: at seedling emergence, plant maturity, reproductive maturity, and seed harvest. Quantitative and qualitative characteristics are recorded using a modified list of plant descriptors created by the USDA and Biodiversity International. Data is consolidated into brief descriptions for the Yearbook.”

Do you know more about your peas than the average Joe? If so, we need your help. Beginning in 2010, SSE members are invited to participate in our evaluation process by observing certain varieties in their own gardens. Learn more about our Member-Grower Evaluation Network (M-GEN).

Click here to learn more about SSE collection maintenance.