Dark Star Zucchini

Steve Peters of Seed Revolution Now would like to introduce what may well be the very best zucchini, bar none, for western climates: Dark Star

The star on the flower end of the maturing fruit is indicative of a high lutein content, and shows how this variety got its name...also derived from a Grateful Dead song!

Tucked into a bend in the Eel River in northern California lies a very special, hidden farm.

This is the land of organic produce grower and dedicated seed breeder Bill Reynolds. Bill is descended from a long line of strong, independent spirits. His great grandfather, for whom he was named, was the first sheriff of Nevada County during the gold rush. Bill has lived on this land for over thirty years, learning well how to work with the local natural givens of climate, soil and water.

Bill was already one of Steve's trusted cadre of organic seed growers when, in 2006, the opportunity arose for them to collaborate with Organic Seed Alliance plant breeder Dr. John Navazio to develop an improved open-pollinated zucchini at Eel River Produce Farm.

The location was especially suitable to this project. It was well-isolated, protecting the crop from unwanted cross-pollination. In addition, the high water table of this river bench allowed Bill to grow without any supplemental irrigation. This dry-farming forced the selection of plants which developed larger root systems. Bill had enough land to enable a sizable population, from which he selected those individual plants which showed the desired characteristics.

These traits include: an open habit, making harvest easy, and straight, smooth, shiny dark green fruit, with faceted sides to prevent rolling. In addition, this particular variety offers the nutritional advantaged of a high lutein content. Because it is open-pollinated, it has a much longer season of productivity than hybrids can muster. The continuous production of both male and female flowers guarantees that late season fruits remain straight. 

Dark Star plants, thanks to their stronger root systems, are about one third larger than other varieties. Their leaf stalks are sturdier, so they don't blow in the wind as readily, and are exceptionally smooth, resulting in less scarred fruit. The extra vigor has proved to offer some disease resistance and even frost tolerance on commercial organic farms. Their ability to thrive in areas with harsh sun makes them ideal for Western dry land farming. In fact, we advise against choosing this variety in areas that are very rainy or have comparatively low light, such as the North East, as the plants do too well, and spend their energy on vegetative growth. This is a good example of the importance of bioregional seed development.

Bill was able to witness the success of his efforts in person, as his seed was used on a huge organic farm in Baja California owned by a friend who hosted him there in the winters. The farmer preferred Dark Star to any of the hybrid varieties he had tried. In the above photo the plants on the left are hybrids. The difference is clear.

This farmer's production was very large, and wound up distributed in natural supermarkets across the US. A few years ago, a killing freeze hit Baja. All of the hybrid varieties succumbed, but Dark Star bounced back. For a while that winter, it was the only variety available in the stores. We were impressed!

Bill continues to work on improving Dark Star. This is strictly a one-man, hands-on operation, in which he takes a lot of pride. 

He has come up with some ingenious improvised tools to help process the seed. Here he stirs the fermented pulp.

A home-made sluice quickly cleans the seed.

Voila!

  

Seed Revolution Now and the Organic Seed Alliance continue to monitor this and other crop varieties on farms in many bioregions around the country. Here Bill and Steve visit Full Belly Farm in Northern California's Capay Valley, where a summer squash trial was run. Once again, you can see that the Dark Star plants, on the right, are about a third larger. They also once again demonstrated some tolerance to disease; in this case mosaic virus.

It is important to us to hear from the farmers what they think about the varieties. Steve also wants to get their ideas about what they will need in the future, to direct breeding efforts in useful ways.

 Our germination test in mid-September 2014 was 98% after three days. It wants to grow!

Dark Star is a proven performer on organic produce farms across the arid West. Certified organically grown seed is available in bulk quantities to farmers, seed companies and co-ops from Seed Revolution Now at pricing which is competitive and fair to all. Contact Steve Peters at www.stevegrows@gmail.org or call him at 505-660-3933 to inquire about this and our other fine vegetable seed offerings. 

Seed Revolution Now offers other services as well, including classes, consultations, and custom seed growing.

 Call Steve; he's not afraid to go out on a limb for you!

Seed rEvolution Now

Promoting and distributing high quality, open-pollinated, organically grown, public-domain vegetable seeds , and working with organizations and farmers to create a functional cooperative network of seed breeders, producers, and customers.

Proud seed farmer Rich Pecoraro of Abbondanza Seeds in Colorado shows off some of his high desert quality seed.

The Challenge

Today we are facing an unprecedented challenge to our very survival as the climate destabilizes. Farmers everywhere are scrambling to find crops that perform well under stressful conditions. At the same time, we have lost 90% of the crop varieties that were available just 80 years ago, as corporations have moved to commodify and monopolize all aspects of our food system.

To counter this dilemma, Seed rEvolution Now is working with skilled, certified organic seed growers and seed specialists to promote and provide open-pollinated (OP) top quality certified organic seed that farmers can save, select, and regrow if they so desire. This is our heritage and our birthright.

The Challenger

Steve Peters is a seed professional who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. With over 35 years of experience in organic farming and agricultural research, Steve has specialized for the past two decades in working with organically grown, open-pollinated seed. 

After a start as a market gardener in upstate New York, he returned to graduate school and obtained an MS in veg crops. He worked as a research scientist at the Rodale Institute Research Center in Pennsylvania for nine years. Next, for fifteen years, he built a remarkable inventory for Seeds of Change, creating a cadre of skilled seed growers in the process. 

Most recently he was the farm supervisor at the Native Seeds/SEARCH farm in southern Arizona. Upon moving to the San Francisco Bay Area for family reasons, he’s founded Seed rEvolution Now, in order to further the mission of providing the organic community with high quality public domain seed.

Contact Steve Peters:

T:   505-660-3933  E:   stevegrows@gmail.com

Seed rEvolution Now Services

Bridging the gap between seed customers,  plant breeders and seed producers, Seed Revolution Now provides the following services:

• SRN offers certified organic OP seed in bulk quantities to farmers and retailers at competitive prices.
• Provides detailed information on crop performance under varied conditions.
• Contracts with seed farmers to satisfy specific custom seed requests.
• Consults with market growers to assist in seed selection appropriate to their situation.
• Conducts on-farm variety trials and disseminates findings to the organic farming community.
• Teaches workshops and classes on seed saving.
• Writes articles on seed sovereignty.
• Networks with farmers and organizations to establish a national co-operative of organic OP seed breeders, growers and customers. 

Steve teams up with OSA crop scientist Jared Zystro to set up comparison trials on a leading organic farm in the Capay Valley of California. Field trials on organic farms are a critical stage in the development of improved strains. By growing a broad range of varieties including  growers’ current standard cultivars and several promising new strains,  informed decisions can be made. 

Meeting the needs of organic seed consumers

Organic market farmers face continuous and growing challenges to meet the desires of their customers. Seed Revolution Now offers help, matching seed customers with producers who can develop OP varieties that address market demands.

Traditional OP Breeding

We have been told that GMO technology is the only way we can possibly feed our burgeoning population. This is not true. Traditional breeding is fully capable of meeting our needs. OP breeding allows every generation of plants to respond to a changing environment, with each new selection leading to further adaptations. Key features of this dynamic approach include:

• Developing “workhorse” varieties for a wide range of environments.
• Developing varieties for specific climatic and soil conditions.
• Selecting for durable, multi-gene disease and/or pest resistance.
• Breeding for plant vigor and reliably high yields.
• Selecting for distinctive consumer qualities such as outstanding flavor, unique color, and elevated nutritional content.
• Invites the participation of seed customers in the improvement of varieties for their specific needs.
• Allows farmers to save and select seed, if they so choose, for their own seed sovereignty.

 Seed Bred For Organic Conditions

All of the varieties offered by Seed Revolution Now are open-pollinated, public domain, and organically grown by skilled certified organic seed farmers. They are either tried and true heritage varieties or new improved selections with characteristics that are especially valuable for organic market gardeners. At times we may offer seeds that carry a royalty charge to compensate breeders for their work, but access to genetic material is never restricted. The following offerings are a representative sampling of available seed.  Contact Steve Peters for the most current seed listing.

Stella Blue Winter Squash

Dark orange flesh is exceptionally sweet and nutty on a high-yielding Hokkaido/Kabocha cross.  This Cucurbita maxima has light slate blue smooth skin. 95-105 days 

Discovered by Bill Reynolds at a local market in northern CA and selected for organic cultivation at his dryland farm in Humbolt County, Stella Blue is a reliable yielder, offering the market grower an excellent medium sized winter squash with a chestnut-like texture that appeals to discening clientele.

Scarlet Runner Bean

Originally from Mexico, and a favorite in the British Isles, this beautiful, long-producing climber is great eating as a snap bean, in the green shell stage, or as a dry bean. Brilliant red-orange flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Excellent quick screen. 90-95 days to dry stage.

Lemon Cucumber

Unusual spherical fruit with thin tender skin and sweet/tart succulent flesh, this is a traditional  backyard favorite for fresh eating. A reliable yielder of 2-3" diameter juicy yellow cukes. Great market variety. 70-75 days

Shiraz Tall Top Beet

This delicious improved dual-purpose beet was developed for organic production, and shows significant resistance to rhizoctonia dry rot. As the name implies, the tops are especially tall and sturdy, and make a wonderful steamed green. It's the result of a five-year breeding collaboration between Organic Seed Alliance crop scientist Dr. John Navasio and organic seed farmers Randy Carey (OR) and Bill Reynolds (CA). 55-60 days

Dark Star Zucchini

Proven superior to hybrid varieties on large organic farms, this drought and frost resistant variety has a sturdy, open habit with 30% more leaf area, and a deep root systems, resulting in strong, healthy, easily harvested plants; a boon to the organic grower. Straight, faceted, glossy dark fruits of high lutein content.  Long harvest window from vigorous plants. 50-55 days

A collaboration between John Navazio, Steve Peters, and Bill Reynolds, perfected on Bill’s dryland farm in northern CA. Bill credits the remarkable qualities of this break-away variety to his dry farming technique.

                                                                                                        A dozen years later, Bill examines his                Dark Star grown in a trial at Full Belly Farm in California's Capay Valley, where it exhibits more vigor under disease stress than their standard hybrid variety. Continuing trials and selections in different environments lead to further crop improvements.

Dragon Carrot

With deep red-violet skin and yellow-orange interior, this is the best tasting purple carrot on the market, with a bit of spiciness. This is another excellent variety bred by John Navazio and selected by skilled Colorado seed farmer Rich Pecoraro. Strong tops for good bunching.  70-80 days

Contact Steve Peters for the most current seed listing and prices. Seed available in quantities from one ounce to ten pounds for most varieties.

505-660-3933

 stevegrows@gmail.com

Seeds In a Nutshell

The Basics of Seeds

Contained in a package which is both resistant to decay and yet biodegradable, a seed is the epitome of potentiality. Every open-pollinated seed contains the genetic code to not simply reproduce the traits of its parents, but of all its ancestors. Each seed is a veritable treasure trove of diverse traits, and those varieties that have lasted up to the present time have done so because they carried traits which enabled the plants to be maintained, year after year, under the care of human farmers.

Land Race, Heirloom, Open-Pollinated, Hybrid, GMO, and Patented Seeds

What is the Difference?

Agriculture developed as observant gatherers saved the seed of the plants they thought were best to replant near their homes. Thousands of years of deliberate selection brought us to a time of untold genetic wealth. Seed for a specific variety was selected by a farmer because of certain traits observed in that plant. It may have resistance to a disease common in the farmer's region. It may be especially productive. It may be particularly delicious. Hopefully it combines several desirable characteristics. For some reason it has stood the test of time.

Mural of Mississippian woman cultivating corn. Illinois State Museum, Dickson Mounds. Artist, Andy Buttram.

The attributes of any crop grown in a particular region will gradually differentiate from related crops in other areas. This is simple evolution, enhanced by human selection based on many cultural and environmental factors. One village's corn may be especially good for making posole (hominy), while in the next valley over there's a village famous for the delicious tortillas. Each isolated crop will contained a broad spectrum of possible traits within its genetic code, enabling it to thrive in spite of annual vicissitudes in local climate. For example, one year the shorter, stockier plants may survive when there's little rainfall, while in a wet year the tall plants do better. Local farmers will get a harvest in spite of conditions. This broad crop type is called a Landrace, and this is how humans have survived for the past ten thousand years.

A Landrace of tomatillos called Purple Keeper, demonstrating diversity in color

The next refinement in seed-saving picks one expression out of the Landrace's multiple possibilities, and refines and improves it. When a particular selection of plant cultivar is saved over many generations, it is considered an Heirloom. Heirloom Seeds are always, by definition, open-pollinated. This means that seed collected from the plant will reproduce true-to-type, as long as there was no cross-pollination with another related variety (more on this later). Heirloom crops include treasured selections such as Brandywine Tomato, revered for its flavor, and Lemon Cucumber, a reliable producer.

Lemon cucumbers ripened for seed

In the 1930s the Hybrid Revolution began. Hybrids are not open-pollinated; they are rather the result of a careful process of controlled fertilization, created by crossing two or more inbred lines in order to achieve desired traits. Thus, hybrids result in plants which will not reproduce true-to-type. They may be sterile, as with mules, or they may exhibit any random combination of genes from their ancestry. This was a boon for commercial plant breeders, as farmers could no longer grow their own seed, and had to purchase new seed for each season. Hybrid breeding has had the benefit of huge amounts of time, effort and money inputs in order to produce profitable seeds.

It is significant, if little known, that traditional open-pollinated breeding techniques hold the potential to achieve all of the advantages of hybrids, including vigor, disease resistance, and yield, and at significantly lower seed cost to the farmers. What is needed to achieve this is funding for prolonged research and development. This is what our land grant university system once did, and could do again if public pressure is brought to bear!

Stella Blue winter squash is an O-P developed for organic production conditions

GMO (genetically modified organism) seed is created by the actual manipulation of the DNA of the plant in a lab. Gene splicers have inserted foreign genetic material into their subjects, including animal genes into plants. A famous case is still a heated controversy. Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacteria which kills the larval stage of butterflies and moths, was used by organic farmers and gardeners to control many crop pests in an environmentally safe way. GMO Bt corn was developed to eliminate the need for spraying. Sounds good? Unfortunately, the Bt proved to be carried by the wind-born corn pollen. Settling on milkweed stands away from the corn field, the toxin killed one half of all the monarch butterflies in the country in one season. In addition, there is evidence that this bacillus is detrimental to intestinal flora of mammals, including farm animals, as well as humans. It is illegal to save the seed of GMO plants, and the corporations which hold the patents are determined to prosecute any infringements.

Monarch caterpillars on a milkweed leaf dusted with pollen

In addition, there are two legal ways which restrict the right to save seeds. The Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 offers intellectual property protection for non-hybrid seed propagated crop plants. To sell the seed of a PVP variety, the seller must pay royalties to the developer. This enables seed breeders to receive appropriate compensation for their work, while still allowing farmers to save seed and use the material in their own breeding programs. 

The second type of patent is the Utility Patent, which is much more restrictive. Any seed with a Utility Patent cannot be saved, resold, or used in breeding. This removes all access to this genetic material by the general public, consequently removing precious biodiversity from the public domain in a time of increasing climatic instability. The Utility Patent is a dream come true for corporations set on the monopolization of our food resources. Alarmingly, even general agronomic traits, such as drought resistance, can be placed under Utility Patents. 

Monarch on milkweed

We do not pretend to be without bias in this blog. The stakes are too high. We are running out of time to save the wealth of genetic diversity passed down to us from our forebears. Already, in the seventy years since hybridization became the norm for seed companies, we have lost an estimated 70-80% of the varieties that were available a century ago. This is a worldwide phenomenon. The problem is succinctly explained by Dr. John Navazio, senior scientist at Organic Seed Alliance and Washington State University seed research and extension specialist, in his recent book The Organic Seed Grower:

"In the 1980s major oil, agrochemical, and pharmaceutical companies started to buy many of the major seed companies worldwide, having recognized that seed was an untapped intellectual property resource of major proportions for the future. Seed company mergers became the order of the day, and by the mid-1980s Royal Dutch Shell, through a series of mergers and acquisitions, became the largest seed company in the world.

Decisions on the direction of research or the types of services the seed companies would direct toward different market sectors were now made by corporate managers or "bean counters" and were no longer under the purview of agronomists. Many minor agricultural regions, market sectors, and crop types were increasingly ignored as the bean counters from corporate headquarters eliminated the breeding programs and crop varieties that served the least lucrative markets. Increasingly, the commercial development of agricultural seed was directed at the highest-profile, highest-profit market: farms on prime agricultural land in large-scale, centralized production areas that are favored by agribusiness. This trend resulted in a narrowing of the breeding focus by all of the seed companies. The deathwatch for regionalism in commercial seed was beginning."

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Saving Seeds

A farmer or gardener today can join in the traditional practice of saving seeds by learning the art of observation and practicing careful husbandry of the genetic puzzle which each variety reflects. Many crops are relatively simple to save, and some can be grown in a small amount of space. Those that self-pollinate, such as beans, tomatoes or lettuce, are an appropriate introduction to the discipline. The recent innovation of Seed Libraries around the country is a boon to novice seed savers.

Card catalog repurposed at the Richmond Seed Library

Other crops, such as squash or corn, may cross-pollinate; their pollen distributed by insects or by the wind. These require special care to avoid unwanted hybridization. Isolation from the pollen of related crops, which could change the resulting offspring, may be achieved by maintaining distance in space (exact distances vary greatly among different crops) or time (when pollen is spreading), which may put constraints on the seed growers ability to save pure seed. There is a lot to know, and it is easy to mess up a favorite line through poor practices.

Corn breeding on an organic farm in California

Another form of isolation is the use of physical barriers, such as paper bags, which can be tied over the female flowers before they open. Then the desired male pollen can be applied by hand to the receptive females by the dedicated seed grower. This technique is used by breeders to grow new varieties of both hybrid and open-pollinated crops, as well as a way for preservationists, like Native Seeds/SEARCH to grow out many varieties of precious heirloom crops without fear of crossing.

For folks seriously interested in the art of seed preservation, Seed School is offered by Native Seed/SEARCH. A quick Google perusal of the words "seed school" reveal several other such courses around the country. It is well worth attending a course if you really want to get into seeds and do it right.

The first graduates of Seed School, Sedona AZ, Oct. 2, 2010

Several have gone on to start Seed Libraries and seed companies around the country

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Steve Peters, founder of Seed Revolution Now, is an agricultural researcher and seed specialist who works closely with organic farmers like those in The Family Farmers Seed Cooperative to not only preserve heirloom varieties that have proven to be good performers, but to develop and promote new varieties of regionally adapted, open-pollinated, public domain seed to compete with the more expensive proprietary patented hybrid and GMO seeds which have increasingly dominated the market.