High Mowing's 2023 Organic Seed Catalog

 Things I learned from High Mowing Organic Seeds's 2023 Catalog

Grafting: in vegetables, only used for tomatoes. Instead of transplanting, graft onto established roots.

I remember hearing some drivel about how tomatoes aren't vegetables, they're a fruit.  But, botanically, half of the vegetables are fruits.  Beans, cucumbers, eggplant, melons, okra, peppers, pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, watermelon, zucchini.  I don't hear anyone proclaiming "green beans are fruits!"

Most category-consistent omission:  strawberry seeds. It’s a berry, not a vegetable!  Even though they are often grown as annuals, maybe they are marketed under the category of fruit trees and perennial fruit bushes...

Spinosad and Bt are popular organic insect pest controls and are non toxic to humans and, if used correctly, mostly harmless to beneficial insects. 

Most surprising omission: sweet potatoes seeds.  Maybe because HM are mostly focused on northern crops?  Also surprisingly limited selection of collard greens, okra and swiss chard.   I noticed on the HM website that all of the conference/expos they attend are in Northern-tier states.

Least surprising omission:  cannabis seeds.  Cash crop anyone?

Most interesting omission:  mushroom seeds.   Inoculant is very popular in some areas, but with mixed success.  Is the omission a sign of lack of interest?

Most organic omission:  Imperator-type carrots.  The main type sold commercially (even "baby carrots" are whittled from these), and HM has all of the other types:  Nantes, Danvers, Chantenay… the catalog sometimes references mainstream conventional varieties of other vegetables (e.g. "Payday") but doesn't include them.  Seems organic breeders have mostly focused outside the mainstream.

Interesting which vegetables don't have disease resistance traits.  Do they not need it or has it not been selected yet?

Most confusing "seeds":  potatoes.  Apparently no one grows potatoes from seed.

Lowest-common denominator certification:  Non-GMO Project.  Is this the cheapest certification or just the best marketing logo?  Either way this seems to be the go-to certification for everything.  I have friends who say they won't buy GMO.  But organic?  Regenerative?  Bee Better?  Too expensive, what, what?  I guess it does make sense for High Mowing since they sell corn and soy. 

Pollinators

I was surprised there wasn't more mention of pollinator requirements.  Which vegetables need pollinators?  All of the fruits… 

But peas and soy can self-pollinate.  Corn should be planted in blocks so it can be wind-pollinated.

Gynoecious and monoecious cucumbers need to be planted with another variety for pollination. Parthenocarpic cucumbers don't need pollinators (= good for greenhouses). 

Seedless watermelons :  one variety needs pollination from a different variety. 

The insect apocalypse is real.  This summer I heard from people in different parts of the country who had to hand-pollinate their squash because they couldn't get any fruit otherwise.  I visited a remnant prairie patch in Ohio in July that was in full flower, but completely silent and devoid of insect life.  All blooming and no buzzing.

Hybrid vs OP vs Heirloom

Seed saving controversy:  Advocates like Bill McDorman make hybrid seeds seem almost immoral.  He claims seed-saving as an inalienable right of indigenous and small-holder farmers everywhere.  But its hard.  His very interesting book* gives detailed specifications for how far apart you have to plant different varieties to avoid cross-pollinating, in-breeding depression, or outbreeding depression.  I wonder how many farmers save seed?

Descriptions in HM imply that hybrids are better than OP.  Also interesting how many varieties are protected (from seed-saving) by UP or PVP. 

References

Bill McDoman. Basic Seed Saving: Easy step by step instructions for 18 popular vegetables. 

 Attachments

Excerpt from a conventional seed catalog.

Is Organic Agriculture Healthier for the Environment and the Consumer?

This deceptively simple question is difficult to prove.  In a widely-read science blog post, Dr. Christie Wilcox (her PhD is in marine biology, not agriculture) argues that the supposed benefits of organic farming are all myths.

While some of her specific claims, such as that organic farmers are allowed to use the incredibly toxic natural compound rotenone, are off-mark, much of her critique appears to stand.  The reasons are various, but telling:  there are costs and benefits to different agricultural systems, and organic farms face many of the same challenges of conventional farming.  For example, herbicides allow no-till farming, with myriad benefits for soil structure and water quality.  It is extremely difficult to practice no-till without some means of removing weeds.

Certified organic farms may not use synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.  But if organic farmers choose to use a natural compound to kill weeds or pests there is nothing to guarantee that such a compound would be less toxic to the ecosystem and to humans. Natural compounds on organic farms may be more toxic than their synthetic analogues!

Unfortunately, while there are comprehensive databases of the type and amount of pesticides found on conventional food (see the Environmental Working Group's annual Dirty Dozen list), no such testing of natural compounds on organic produce is conducted.  Apparently synthetic compounds are investigated more than natural compounds, perhaps due to an unstated belief in the Naturalistic Fallacy, i.e. that natural chemicals must be healthier than synthetic chemicals.  But many plants (for example, nightshades) contain totally natural compounds... that are totally toxic as well.

A good take-home message would be to wash all of your fruit and veggies, whether they are organic or not.  And learn which plants are poisonous.  I'm not even going to get into all of the (natural and synthetic) chemicals and preservatives in grains, let alone refined flours, etc.

Organic Food Controversy in the New Yorker -- Science Writing at its Worst

Mr. Specter is a staff writer for the New Yorker.  He tends to write about agriculture and genetic engineering, but on closer inspection his writing provides a dangerous combination of blind faith in science and a misunderstanding of what science is.

His bio of Vandana Shiva uses a source to give voice to the conclusion that Shiva is “a fraud…blinded by her ideology and her political beliefs."  She responded alleging Specter's article made “fraudulent assertions" and consisted largely of "deliberate attempts to skew reality.”  The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, defended Specter's article against her list of complaints, item-by-item.

But both Shiva and Specter make ideological arguments.  They both use convenient scientific anecdotes to support their "ideology and ...political beliefs".  However, Specter works as a "journalist," and therefore implicitly claims at least some objectivity, whereas Shiva is a self-described advocate for her cause, and is at least honest about her agenda.

Specter criticizes Shiva for being unscientific, but how scientific is Specter?  Does he cite scholarly papers?  No.  Does he weigh the pros and cons of conflicting theories?  No.  Instead, he interviews a couple scientists who happen to already agree with his perspective.

Do you ever wish that complicated issues could be quickly and easily resolved by an impartial and all-knowing 3rd party?  Specter has found just such an infallible arbiter, but, unfortunately for the rest of us, it a biased version of science.

Apparently, Specter thinks science is a set of facts that should not be questioned.  But science is just the inverse: a way of questioning that is based on facts (ie empirical evidence).  Specter is totally amazed that anyone could doubt “science”.  Even worse, he thinks he knows what “science” is!

(I've already pointed out the impossibility of some of the scientific assertions Specter has made in a previous blog post.)

I wrote this post because I noticed a pattern, or agenda, behind Specter's use of science.  He wrote an entire book defending science, entitled  "Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives."  Specter's book claims to defend science and rationality from the assaults of organic food advocates, but he couldn't quite bring himself to evaluate the research that didn't support his conclusion. It's surprising how little actual scientific research he manages to cite; Tom Philpott had this to say about Denialism for Grist.org:

"Two major assumptions underlie [Specter's work]: organic agriculture delivers frightfully low yields, and GMO agriculture delivers reassuringly high yields. He doesn’t deliver data to back up either of those claims. Here are two studies, both of which came out in time for consideration in Denialism, that Specter really should have grappled with: 1) a 2009 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists showing that after decades of research, transgenic seeds have yet to deliver yield increases; and 2) a 2005 study in Bioscience (summary here) showing that yields of organically grown corn and soy match those of their conventional counterparts–with dramatically lower energy inputs."

For me, the real issue is a scientific question: can GMO crops sustainably out-produce other alternatives, particularly the organic small landholder polyculture that Shiva champions?  Shiva claims that local, diverse agricultural systems can produce more and healthier food per acre than green revolution mass monocultures, especially in the long run.  Unfortunately, while Specter's article questions some of Shiva's claims, it does little to fill this crucial knowledge gap.

How Much Energy It Takes to Eat

Most energy use in the path from farm to fork happens in the kitchen. Just driving to the grocery store to pick up the groceries uses more energy than all the industrial agriculture, shipping warehouses, and long-hauls trucks used to get your groceries into the store. Also, depending on how much you buy at one time, you are likely burning more calories (in gasoline) than you just bought....think about that the next time you're calorie-counting!

Apparently, most of the (increasing) energy consumption in the kitchen comes from more people owning dishwashers and second refrigerator/freezers. Energy use has increased in the kitchen even while people spend less time in the kitchen.

Of course, the above perspective does not mean that reducing energy consumption in any sector is less important than any other sector.

Source.

Sustaining Lives through Organic Farming

Association for India's Development, Columbus, along with the EARTH Center and Students for Food Sovereignty welcomes AID Fellow and organic farming expert, Ms. Revathi.

Revathi has worked with more than 32,000 farmers in the organic movement in Tamil Nadu and her work has been recognized by the governments of India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. She has hands-on knowledge in the importance of rejuvenating the soil using a holistic approach towards soil restoration, seed selection techniques, methods to create organic pest repellent and herbicides. She described the use of Sesbania ("dhaincha") to reclaim soils made saline by the tsunami as well as conventional agriculture.

More info.

Soybeans as a Nitrogen Sink?

"Field Investigations of Manure and Synthetic Fertilizers on Agronomic Crops in Ohio" a talk by Keith Diedrick, OSU School of Environment and Natural Resources Soil Science Graduate Program.

This talk described the problem of too much fertilizer: large factory farms produce huge amounts of manure, which then must be disposed of. Whereas city and municipal biosolids (human waste) must be handled with extreme caution including up to a year of filtration, settling, fermentation, and more filtering, animal waste is treated differently. It is spread directly on conventional farm fields. Current agricultural practice includes spreading manure on top of snow (which then melts directly into local streams).

This research aimed to determine how much of this goop could be applied before the fields became over fertilized. This research should help farmers know when and how much animal waste they can apply to their fields. Ironically, the research was conducted on crops that actually require no fertilizer: soybeans. Because soybeans are legumes, they fix their own nitrogen and increased fertilizer has not shown increased productivity. While there may have been some productivity increase with increased use of manure, the limiting factor appears to be the production of dissolved forms of nitrogen in the soil. If farmers hypothetically wanted to limit the amount of fertilizer running off their fields, how much manure can they apply? Unfortunately, given that no groundwater or runoff samples were taken, it is not clear that this research can answer this question.

Maybe when will we stop researching factory farms and Roundup Ready soybeans and start researching solutions to the ecological and agricultural problems of today there will be better news to report here. This talk completely omitted the issue of antibiotics, surfactants, and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in manure and what effect these compounds might have on downstream ecology. I'm not just questioning the blatant narrow mindedness of this research, but the entire mindset that could lead someone to claim that this toxic manure is "just NPK" [nitrogen, phosphate, potassium] and that those three chemicals are the only thing important to plant nutrition and ecosystem functioning.