If you are like me, the seeds from last year are under evaluation and new orders are on their way. I also find it useful to have a paper planner for mapping out goals and plans for the garden harvest for the coming seas on. I love these questions and prompts for guiding my thinking. Join my (very) occasional newsletter and download your calendar for 2024.
(Originally published in Permaculture Design magazine, issue #105, 2017)
I remember exploring my grandfather’s gardens. Bryce Ping had five gardens located in different parts of the Jackson County, Indiana: each one sporting some of the same—but often different varieties—of squash, corn, peppers, and tomatoes. The garden on his own property was one of the finest examples of integrated systems I’ve ever seen—replete with beds on contour, re-use of water, rabbits, geese, and chickens. Everything was mulched with newspaper and grass, sawdust, or spoilt hay from nearby. He lived on the salvage economy: heating with scraps from the sawmill and re-using every plastic container that entered his house.
He is also the one that introduced me to the varieties and unusual qualities of many fruits, flowers, and vegetables. His entryways were lined with canned goods (his own parents had tried to run a canning business when commercial grocery stores came into their region) and he continued to value preserved food—often experimenting with recipes. Jars also held seed saved from year to year. Paper plates were often found in the kitchen in summer—drying various seeds from the day’s harvest. He wasn’t very meticulous about labeling them—but I imagine now he must have developed several of his own varieties. When he passed, my aunts distributed the goods—and I wonder what happened to those canned goods and seeds. It would have been a fortune in genetic diversity.
His story reminds me of one relayed to me one night over dinner in Naperville. Peter Bane and I were teaching a permaculture design course at The Resiliency Institute in Naperville, Illinois, when Ron and Vicki Nowicki came to dinner. I still haven’t made it to their garden—which by all accounts is a feat of implementation. Vicky shared the story of a tomato variety she grows out in her garden. The seed was, like many seeds in the US a hundred years ago, brought into the country by immigrants. The seeds were so important, the relationship over generations so strong, that many immigrants would sew the seeds into the linings of their clothing. The tomato she spoke of had been grown by a second generation Italian man for, if I remember right, 60 years, before passing it on to her. He inherited it from his grandfather and parents, but his own children did not care to garden. So she has taken up the relationship.
Perspective from the stars
If we consider that flowering plants evolved shortly after conifers roughly 300,000 million years ago, the development of hundreds of thousands of species today in the vast array of colors, shapes, scents, and behaviors is truly astounding. If we take it that humans have been around for 6 million years, plants embody natural wisdom a great deal more. Still, the 200,000 years of human civilization might be defined by the relationship of people to plants—mutually cultivating each other (see Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire for more on that thought). Our leap into agriculture 10,000 years ago is only a fraction of that time and represents a rift in thinking: moving from relationships to plants in community (polycultures) towards primary relationships with a few key domesticated species (wheat, corn, barley, squashes, etc…). This relationship of people to plants—especially cultivation of food plants—is one which we must re-enter: humbly and quickly. If you asked me the top five skills children should be learning, seed saving and plant breeding would be right among them. Food—and seeds—are also one of the very best tools to reconnect, not only with the land, but with our ancestors. (Okay, so I’m not SO keen on the leek favored by my Welsh ancestors, but it has its place).
Everybody loves popcorn
While beginning to relearn the culture of my Native American (primarily Cherokee/Ani'yunwiya) forebears, I came across a story of “The Lucky Hunter” and his wife, Selu—a Corn woman (1). In order to feed her children, Selu would give of herself. That is the place of corn in importance—it is literally the mother of some of the earliest people in the land. The same reverence for plants which sustain and nourish us is found throughout the world. When I think of the awe which my grandfather instilled in me for flowers, fruits, and tastes which were varied and full of wonder; which resonated with the relationships of people to plants throughout history—I want THAT WORLD again for the next generation and all generations going forward. I firmly believe we will not survive as a species if we do not cultivate that respect and connection to plants and their children (seeds).
It must have taken some similar connection for people to facilitate the evolution of teosinte into maize. Teosinte, a multi-stem grass found throughout Central America with 5-12 small, hard seeds was domesticated into modern maize and corn varieties. The story might be that earlier people used teosinte as fuel in the fire and found that the kernels popped—everybody loves popcorn! Indeed, some of the oldest archeological records include popcorn. (2) Research now recognizes that the development likely focused on only a few characteristics initially—severely limiting genetic diversity. (3) Once favorable characteristics made the plant more desirable as a cultivated food source, other genetic variations —leading to more than 20,000 landraces (locally adapted varieties)—were bred into maize through local selection. This diversity probably reflected a combination of factors for selection including: migration, settlement, and local ecological diversity. Breeding plants has to consider the size of the population in any one area. Inbreeding among a variety can become a problem. Read Zachary Paige’s article for more on how corn was kept from inbreeding too much.
In the 1920’s, modern agronomists began breeding hybrids selecting for uniform yellow kernels, size, etc…. Today, the close kernel size and the tight hold of the cob to the kernel means that without intervention from farmers, most corn kernels would not be able to germinate and reproduce on their own. Truly, we are in a tight relationship of mutual dependence with this wonderfully diverse species. Our futures are linked.
Plant Breeding Today
Just this spring the USDA granted $17.7 million dollars to study plant breeding: all to universities—most to public land-grant universities (8). The grants were in the areas of foundational knowledge of production systems; plant breeding for agricultural production; and physiology of agricultural plants. Besides hybridization and cross-breeding, another technique: precision breeding—has become an option today. This technique works with genetic sequencing from embryos of the plant varieties without introducing foreign or new genetic material—and it gives results in one or two years instead of four or five. (4). This technique is more appealing to European plant breeders who are cautious about genetically modified organisms with cross-species introductions of genetic material.
Who’s Who?
We are familiar with the idea that a lot of agronomy research comes from land grant universities throughout the United States. But there are other major players to be found. The Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, which has brought us commercial tomato and strawberry varieties as well as working on developing pomegranates that can tolerate the Florida summer and so replace citrus. (5). Seed companies themselves breed out varieties of plants that are successful or in demand (think Johnny’s Seed Company). Then of course there is Seed Savers Exchange—and now the many seed libraries found in communities everywhere. We are very familiar with plant breeding and patents on commercial seed. South Africa released its catalog of licenses recently and most commercial crops were licensed to US-based Pioneer and Monsanto companies (9). Other countries that do not have national laws recognizing plant patents are pressured to develop them as quickly as possible.
A new option has been developed in Germany: licensing seed research as open-source. “Anyone can use the varieties, so long as they do not prevent others from conducting research on derivatives; all of the plant's future descendants are also in a ‘commons.’ ” (10) The article continues to describe a similar project in the US—the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) which concluded in 2014 that it was “too unwieldy to gain widespread acceptance among breeders and seed companies…”. This is because intellectual property rights play a bigger role in plant breeding in the US—indeed patenting initiated in the US in 1930. “Commercial breeders, the main producers of economically important new crop varieties, can't use open-source seeds because they would not be able to claim royalties for any varieties they develop from them. If too many seeds were in the open source–only commons, they would be "killing the business model,” Neils Louwaars of Plantum in the Netherlands says. Many universities would also lose out if they could no longer charge royalties for plant traits or breeding tools.”
Still, thinking back to Vicki Nowicki’s story, many plants we have today were bred a hundred or more years ago and continue to produce (and sometimes cross). Luther Burbank, a contemporary and friend with Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries developed more than 800 new varieties of plants—“including over 200 varieties of fruits, many vegetables, nuts and grains, and hundreds of ornamental flowers.” (6). His gardens and programs are continued on today in Santa Rosa, California. Indeed, it was his efforts which inspired the annual Rose Parade.
Breeding and Selection in Permanent Agriculture
Breeding plants and patenting the seed’s genetics are well-known strategies for privatizing (and maintaining the option to get a yield on, if you will pardon the pun) researched food crops. Open source seeds, seed libraries, and commercial seed sources that maintain open-pollinated and heirloom seeds are some of our unsung heroes for food production. Researching this article has highlighted for me again the need for all of us to take up some small part of the work. There are so many benefits: saving money by saving seed; developing varieties that suit your system—whether that’s being productive under greater extremes, fitting a particular microclimate, or introducing new flavor or color into a species. So, how do you do it?
Creating a permanent agriculture can start from different theoretical points—but they all go back to breeding and selecting plants. We cannot create a permaculture system without knowing how to select and breed plants in our own communities. Not every person has to be a seed saver or nursery person, but we should all know at least one. J. Russell Smith, in his well-known treatise Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, made the work of John Hershey, a Depression era nurseryman in Downington, Pennsylvania famous. Hershey grafted and developed various oaks: including his famous bur oaks (see issue #102), for their vigor and early production of acorns. [Editor’s note: since the publication of that article, a small group has begun taking scion wood and continuing to improve the oaks through breeding and selection. If you would like to get involved, contact us.] Similar trials for hazelnuts are now famous at Badgersett (see Eric Toensmeier’s contribution, this issue).
The Land Institute is also well-known for its efforts begun by Wes Jackson in 1983 to create perennial wheat as a way to prevent soil disruption. The Institute has expanded its understanding and framing of its research and is seeking, through plant breeding, to develop several perennial grain crops. Kernza (R) is the closest to commercial implementation. This wheat variant is just now coming onto the market after more than a decade of development. While seeds are smaller (1/5 the size of most commercial wheat varieties), there are more seeds per stalk. The breeding program is selecting for “yield, shatter resistance, free threshing ability, seed size, and grain quality.” (7). Programs to develop sunflowers and sorghum are also well underway. With sunflowers (silphium) the motivation goes beyond choosing a grain or oil crop that can become perennial in the landscape, to considerations for drought tolerance and climate change as well as ecological functions with pollinators. The group started with wild sunflowers that showed remarkable resilience during drought in the Plains states.
Whether we are looking to use improved selections for local small-scale gardens or for broad-scale and regional production to local markets, it is important that we consider our capacity to take up plant breeding. Even if you rent or coordinate a garden plot in an urban setting—you have the space and capacity to grow out seed. The new insights provided by Gregor Mendel and others into genetics stimulated the creativity of 19th century horticulturists like Luther Burbank. At a time of rapid change and variability in ecosystems, it might not be the minds and efforts of a few brilliant breeders, but the simple commitments and creativity of permaculturists everywhere working with nature that builds the bridge between the gardens of our ancestors and those of our descendants.
Whats and Hows
So, what are all of these plant breeders doing? They are, by nature, mostly savers of seed with an eye toward ensuring that particular plants reproduce seed in a relatively pure fashion. Seed saving is one of the most direct ways to cross and breed plants. In classic plant breeding, individuals that are particularly early, robust, tasty, or beautiful—or fill in any other trait—are allowed to set seed and that seed is carefully harvested, stored, and germinated to breed out the next generation. Any propagation technique can be involved (cuttings, layering, etc…): the operative function is that humans are selecting favored characteristics and cultivating a space to include those varieties. Mutations can arise in cuttings or individuals and perpetuate through cuttings, etc… It might behoove us to more carefully observe what is evolving in our forest gardens and using that as a start.
As with any breeding project, a variety can become inbred after a few generations—increasing the fullness of the desired traits, but also diminishing other qualities—including germination rates. It is important to renew genetic stocks by bringing in—or intentionally crossing—with other samples of the variety or another variety which is compatible and might improve fruiting, flavor, size, disease and pest resistance, etc…. Two in-bred lines that are crossed produce an F1 hybrid. The yields from these plants theoretically increase, but crosses between F1 hybrids (F2) can be wildly inconsistent in their production. It is a good idea to cross F1’s and F2’s back to the original stock or move back into very narrow selection in the breeding program.
When breeding your own vegetables and fruits (and sometimes shrub species, but not tree species very practically), you can control which plants pollinate a specimen by hand pollinating and bagging the flowers all the way through seed production, by isolating the variety from potential pollinators by distance, or by isolating the flowering in time from undesirable crosses. You can also weed out undesirable plants among a breeding population (called roguing).
When it comes to keeping records, it’s a good idea to not only label seeds carefully during storage, but also keep track of what is planted, when, and where; as well as notes on development, in a garden journal. If you keep a digital record, including photographs could be very helpful. Burbank was reportedly a horrible record-keeper; preferring to see results in the garden.
The Seed Hoarders’ Dilemma
I find myself with a problem which I bet will be familiar to some of you. I do not have an unlimited budget for commercial seeds; nor do I have much land to grow out uncertain seeds on for test plots. What I do instead is hoard seeds—including both commercial and home grown seeds. I now see this as a fear-based way to retain natural capital. Remember our third ethic: I could give away seeds or put them in the seed library to be borrowed, renewed, and returned to me at some point when I can use them well. What I need to do is continue to plant out the varieties in my seed storage and save the seeds from the plants I’ve grown: refreshing viable stocks and renewing genetics by offering seed and bringing in new seeds from seed exchanges and libraries.
All of this is to say that we can have a lot of fun practicing permaculture by breeding plants that marry our tastes and delights to the needs an functions of the gardens we inhabit. We can do that while feeding our families, sharing with our neighbors, and educating the uneducated. We can use our horticulture to build bridges with those who have a slightly different worldview (ever enter your prize pumpkin in the county fair?). Smart selections might also become valuable locally and spur on greater innovations through seed exchanges. Rather than passively perusing the nursery’s offerings, why not aim to create what you want—allowing the process to surprise, challenge, and delight you with discoveries?
This summer, my kitchen has begun to look like my grandfather’s. He would be so proud.
References and Resources
Caduto, Michael, J., and Joseph Bruchac. Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum, 1998.
Hartmann, Hudson T., Dale E. Kester, and Fred T. Davies, Jr., Plant Propagation: Principles and Practices. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Regents/Prentice Hall, 1990.
Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire. New York: Random House, 2002.
Smith, J. Russell. Tree Crops, A Permanent Agriculture. Reprint. Atlanta, Georgia: Pathfinder Press, 2016.
1. http://sacred-texts.com/nam/cher/motc/index.htm, accessed May 1, 2017.
2. http://www.weedtowonder.org/domestication.html, accessed June 23, 2017.
3. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/Supplement_1/9979.full, accessed June 23, 2017.
There are hundreds of definitions of permaculture. Here's the one I use: Permaculture is an ethical system of design that integrates humans with the natural world.
Let's break that down.
Permaculture = "permanent agriculture" and "permanent culture"
Ethical = Care of the Earth (primary); Care of People; Care of the Future
System = working with an awareness of the interconnectedness of elements of any system we focus on.
of Design = We are co-creating with the Earth and with other people in a way that is intentional and careful
Integrates Humans with the Natural World = we developed a civilization/society that has disconnected us from the Earth we depend upon. (This one if full of tricky implications if you think about it.) Further, we tend to be deeply disconnected from each other.
We can do better, and we can keep improving.
The Problem
I begin almost all of my permaculture design courses with the question:
What is going on in the world? What's the news?
It doesn't take long for the board to fill with "events" that, when we look at them, are systematically connected. Just as the problems are interconnected, so are the solutions.
The Solution
It is time to reintegrate our way of life so that we can heal the Earth, heal ourselves, and tend to the best possible future. We can return to a life which is deeply connected--one that allows us to express the best of the human journey on the planet. What can that look like?
Growing more of our own food in order to have more nutrition, fewer costs, more food security, and a sense of accomplishment and connection. People mostly think of permaculture in relation to horticultural and agricultural techniques.
Increasing the efficiency of our home -- providing for more of its energy, water, and material needs in order to cut costs, increase resilience, and be more productive.
Participating in community-wide initiatives in a way that brings people together. Maybe you love time banks, or food pantries, or developing new products for your area that support the regional economy.
Developing a neighborhood community or an eco village. Permaculture can thrive in these environments.
Learning the plants, birds, insects, and mammals of your area so that you can help to tend and repair the landscape you all share.
Most of all, this is about limiting our impact on the Earth and tipping the balance toward a way of life that will allow future generations to thrive. We can imagine, design, and enact that right now.
In this series of introduction to permaculture articles, I wanted to layout the basics. So here we are looking at the origin of permaculture. In the last one, I shared my definition of permaculture. There, I said it is "an ethical system of design that integrates humans with the natural world." There are hundreds of definitions of permaculture, and that makes it stronger.
Still, the system of design I refer to had a point of origin. Two brilliant and colorful characters, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren met when both were involved in university in Tasmania in 1972. Their months-long conversation critiquing industrial agriculture and the Green Revolution led them to the ideal of "permanent agriculture."
Their synthesis of observed indigenous wisdom and practice, systems thinking, and the new understandings of ecological science led to not only an understanding of the damage industrial agricultural systems were wreaking in a globalizing world, but the impact on culture and a process for undoing the damage. This design process is grounded in the three ethics (Care of the Earth, Care of People, and Care of the Future). The process also guides us to mimic the natural patterns found in any particular place. All culture begins in nature.
In practical terms, this means permaculture relies heavily on restoring perennial plant systems using new combinations of productive, high-yielding species. Tending landscapes using these strategies reinvigorates the systems indigenous humans created and tended around the world throughout our history as a species.
And, there was precedent in academic and scientific circles as well. J. Russell Smith had published a book on Tree Crops (1929) in the horticultural ferment of the 1920's, and Masanobu Fukuoka's One Straw Revolution (1975) was spreading about the same time that Permaculture One (1978) was published.
What came before permaculture?
As I mentioned, indigenous humans around the planet and throughout time created systems of tending the landscape. Some were more successful than others (three previous civilizations failed in China according to the archeological data). In fact, I've come to believe that any human dependent on the land they have access to and with enough resourcefulness time to experiment will come up with many of the strategies and techniques utilized in permaculture design. For example, weir systems harvesting from the tides are very similar between the Haida of the Pacific Northwest and those found on ancient British coasts.
From a more recent experience, my own grandfather developed gardens and systems in his many garden farms in the 1970s-90s. Despite his poverty and lack of education, he developed massive gardens at multiple sites that incorporated trees, shrubs, annual crops, hoop houses, poultry and rabbits. His plantings were on contour and used the light and microclimates to advantage. He used deep mulch to control weeds and keep pathways clear. He heated his home with scrap wood from the local sawmill, canned a massive amount of food. There was cold storage on a north-facing porch. Water was tucked away in gallon jugs, in case the well went dry. We foraged for nuts, mushrooms, wild medicines, and berries regularly.
There is a lot, looking back, that came from trial and error. His awareness of what was happening in his gardens (all five of them stretched over the county) was amazing. Frequently he would pause to show me some plant he'd imported and grown for the first time.
I am fairly certain he never heard of permaculture. A deeply conservative man, he likely wouldn't have been a Mother Earth News reader either. 🙂 That didn't stop him from being connected to the Earth and the cycles of creation and tending implied in permaculture.
Personally, I believe we all need to re-develop our relationship to the Earth (hence Touch the Earth), and to live in relationship to that Earth in a way that is mutually healing. In my journeys, I've connected with many others who share this perspective.
How did it spread?
Permaculture spread initially through publications. There was Permaculture One, then Permaculture Two, then The Designers Manual, then came the Introduction to Permaculture. By this point, Mollison had gone around the world planting the system among likely candidates.
The first international permaculture convergence (IPC) happened in the early 1980s. The IPC agreed to a standard curriculum for a permaculture design course by the mid-1980s. This meant permaculture people around the planet had a common foundation for sharing ideas. From there, permaculture courses and institutes have grown to bring an understanding and practice to hundreds of thousands of people.
In North America the first courses were in 1982 and 1983. Mollison essentially said, if you've taken the course go teach. Amazing projects came out of those initial courses. Slowly into the 1990's more teachers and teaching teams formed. By the time I took my own course in 2005, permaculture was still largely unheard of. North American permaculture has been weedy and wild. Still, more people are at least familiar with the term and have a sense of what permaculture is. More education is needed--and a lot more implementation.
From my perspective, the permaculture design course is an onramp for people from mainstream society to a better future. It's just the beginning of a cultural shift. There are other doorways to that shift, but permaculture design has a lot of tools in the toolbox. There is a great deal of potential for building bridges between people who experience the world in radically different ways, but find a common vision of where they want to go.
It is late January. While walking around a consulting client’s property yesterday, I saw the early bulbs just beginning to peek up above the soil. In my own garden, spring herbs are already beginning to conservatively creep across the ground in the warmer, protected spots. Spring seeding is beginning to happen, and I know that the buds on the trees are beginning to change in the warmer periods.
Nature doesn’t have an on/off switch like our mechanical systems. There is resilience built in to the constant use of energy. Just so, I believe that most people have in the back of their minds and the depths of their heart a desire and a commitment to a beautiful, healthy, just world. The rush and stress are there—but beneath them is the courage and imagination to see a better world.
At the Global Earth Repair Conference in Port Townsend, Washington last May, Precious Phiri gave a powerful keynote. Behind her, on a large screen was a hand-drawn image of an adult sharing with a child—and noting that in 2019, the world woke up and it all changed for the better. The sign said, “And then in 2019 everyone came together and fixed the climate even though it was hard. That was our finest hour.” Until that moment, I was sensitive to the collective grief and worry and persistence of the 500 people gathered. That simple drawing raised the question: how did the world get better? How did we come together and heal the Earth? Each other?
Seven months later, with Rob Hopkins’ book From What Is…to What If? in front of me, I recognize the same question and the same feeling of possibility. What if?
I am exploring this question for myself…and I am very curious to hear what you are imagining, too. I look forward to the changes possible in the year ahead.
