Are You An OP Or An F1?
An article published recently in the New York Times has added fuel to the OP (Open Pollinated) vs F1 (Hybrid seeds) debate. Pitting George Ball of Burpee against Rob Johnston of Johnny’s Seeds, NYT writer Michael Tortorello paints defenders of heirloom seeds like Johnston as anti-science Luddites and corporate breeders like Ball as laughing giants hell-bent on destroying the mom and pop heirloom-only seed companies.
Wow! I hadn’t realized that there was such a passionate argument about which pepper seed I should plant in my garden. And we’re talking backyard garden here, not agricultural farming or GMO’s-that’s a subject for another time.
- A bee pollinating flowers in my garden
Hybrid seeds (F1 in seed catalogs) are first generation seeds of a plant produced by breeding two sometimes unrelated plants in order to create a particular trait such as disease resistance. In most instances, the new plant and its seed becomes the patented property of the breeding company. Hybrids are not to be confused with Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMO’s which are created with recombinant DNA techniques to produce say, corn seed with a pesticide built into its genes. GMO’s are primarily produced for Big Agriculture.
Open Pollinated seeds (OP in seed catalogs) are frequently considered Heirloom seeds, as they are the offspring of parent plants which have been pollinated naturally, i.e. by bees, wind, etc, for many generations. They cannot be patented.
Typically, if you plant the seeds produced by an F1 hybrid, the plants will not come true to the parent plant and may only bear a passing resemblance to what you were expecting (it might also perform just like the parent-it’s a gamble). On the other hand, a seed from an open pollinated plant, when properly selected, dried and stored, should produce as expected, subject to soil and weather conditions.
- Breeding Artemisia
Now you can probably see the dividing lines: the corporate plant breeder who requires that you purchase the same seeds every year vs the heirloom seed company which sells you the seed once for you to grow, harvest and save year after year.
Which side is a humble gardener to stand on? A tomato bred to resist blight or a tomato selected to resist blight? Modern corn bred to taste sugar sweet or multi-colored heirloom corn grown by the Aztecs? Aren’t there benefits to both? Isn’t this the definition of Natural Selection which has been going on since Gregor Mendel‘s era? If I like the taste of a particular variety of corn or tomato and it produces well in my garden, I’m going to plant it year after year. If it disappoints in some way, it usually doesn’t get a second chance and I move on down the list of hundreds, maybe thousands of alternate choices (that’s a simple version of natural selection). One of the things I enjoy about gardening is experimenting with different plants and growing things I haven’t grown before. The Danvers Carrot, an heirloom from the mid-19th century is right at home in my raised beds along with F1 Beefsteak tomatoes and heirloom Black Krim tomatoes. Whether it’s OP or F1 isn’t important to me. I judge a fruit or vegetable by how well it grows and tastes, not who it’s parents were.
We all know that ANYTHING grown in your home garden will taste better than supermarket produce, whether OP or F1. So vote your conscience with your gardening budget. The market will select who thrives.
The “breeders” know you can’t save F1/Hybrid seeds so they have you coming back forever. And they also advocate using all the seeds and THINNING, not telling you to just plant a couple seeds & saving the rest for up to a decade. Gotcha coming & going. I think the hybrids have their place because they don’t have fungal problems etc, but the motive on their part is similar to what tobacco companies knowingly do making cigarettes, right? It’s all about keeping the customer coming back crawling on hands & knees. More PRIDE growing heirloom, not to mention the pride in saving your own seed.
I have to say that article really annoyed me. I think that the big seed breeders may be feeling an impact in sales since OP seeds are becoming more popular. I agree that there are benefits to both OP and hybrids. I am however, totally against GMO’s and feel that they should be banned.
I plant about 95% OP and just a few F1 Hybrids.
Robin:
I assume you mean the NYT article annoyed you? I hope it wasn’t mine. I agree with you that GMO’s are a road that science should not be going down. As you probably know, chemical giant Monsanto used Recombinant DNA techniques to insert their pesticide Roundup into the genes of corn seed so that industrial farmers wouldn’t have to spray the pesticide on their fields and expose themselves to potentially cancer causing toxins. Now that field pests are showing resistance to Roundup, they’ve created a real Pandora’s Box. Nature is always more powerful than Man.