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Re: Will it work for survival?

<blink> Well...I have trouble taking the Year 2000 chaos scenario too
much to heart, but the idea of independent food production, for
*whatever* reason, is nevertheless an interesting one, so I thought I'd
do a bit of rambling about the seed issue, at least. Please keep in mind
that it is nothing more than rambling - for better information, you
might want to hunt for a sustainable agriculture list.

> Finally, is anyone doing SQ FT farming using non-hybrid, open-pollenated
> seed stock, as would be required without a supply of standard hybrids?
> Please comment on the use of non-hybrids in this SQ FT environment.

Yep - I use mostly open-pollinated seeds. I don't see any reason why the
Square Foot method would especially require hybrids.  From what I've
read about plant breeding, some crops, like corn, benefit  dramatically
from hybridization, and others, like tomatoes, benefit very little. The
catch, however, is that there are some good plant attributes,  like
resistance to some diseases, that don't necessarily depend on the plant
being a hybrid, but that happen to be only available in hybrids because
that's how the breeders chose to present them.

On the other hand, hybrids have some characteristics that you probably
don't even *want* in your scenario. My understanding is that most
hybrids are bred for conventional commercial agriculture, which means
that they're bred for toughness in shipping, for simultaneous ripening,
for ripening after they're picked green, for machine harvesting. None of
these things are really useful in your scenario - when you're growing
your own food, you don't really *want* forty cabbages or a hundred bean
plants or several hundred tomatoes to be all ready to pick at once, and
then to go out of production.

(Well, the bean plants were a bad example, actually - I don't think that
anybody actually sells hybrid bean seed? There are a number of crops
that are seldom sold as hybrids.)

If your scenario has you maintaining your own varieties, saving your own
seeds, for a number of years, you'll want to get some books on seed
saving, and decide what crops this is practical for. As an example, one
of my books says that corn is subject to strong inbreeding depression,
so you wouldn't want to just grow a few corn plants and save the seed -
you'd want to have a population of several hundred plants, or you'd want
to choose another crop. On the other hand, a crop like potatoes lets
you bypass the seed/hybrid issue altogether.

If you're having trouble finding non-hybrid seeds, Seeds Of Change is
one good source.

Martha
mart@best.com

M. Wilson
mart@best.com

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