Seeds Explained

Seeds are something we take for granted.

They seem so straightforward most of the time, but are a point of difficulty for new growers. Today I want to clear up some essential information about seeds.

This is a subject I’m particularly excited to talk about, so let’s dive in!

Please note that there are always exceptions, so I’m sure not everything I talk about will be applicable to some rare or exotic seeds

Genetics

Diversity

There are a handful of things to note about genes in seed. Generally speaking, the more diverse the genetics, the healthier a population can be over time.

Dogs for example will start to form health issues and defects if you keep them pure bred, but mutts tend to have far fewer problems overall. This extends to most living things (humans included) and should be the first thing to note about seeds.

Issues arise when we start to breed plants that are sterile (can’t reproduce or are seedless) the biggest relatable example is the banana market.

By the mid-century we used to grow one main staple banana (known as the Gros Michel) for commercial production. Since bananas are propagated as clones rather than grown from seed (more on that later) they lacked genetic diversity.

This wasn’t an immediate problem until Panama Disease (a banana fungal disease) swept through and wiped out all existing plantations. These bananas lacked the genes to be resistant to the disease. Later they were replaced with the Cavendish banana which is seedless completely. This means that unless people start growing bananas from seed to introduce new genetics, we may have to go without bananas on a commercial scale for a while.

Coincidentally banana-flavored candy are supposed to mimic the older Gros Michel banana, NOT the modern Cavendish which is why we don’t recognize it as a banana flavor.

Adaptation

I bring that story up to highlight the importance of growing things from seed. Are seedless fruits more convenient to eat? Sure. But they’re risky on a large scale because it limits how many varieties can exist!

On the flip side, the benefits of growing from seed are pretty crazy!

My favorite benefit is the adaptation.

Let’s go back to the dog example (I feel like it could get weird using humans): Purebred dogs often have health problems (hip dysplasia, breathing problems, anxiety, manic episodes, heart problems, etc.) but crossbreeds tend to not have these issues. Why is this?

Genes in dogs (and in seeds) store information about what their ancestors dealt with in order to adapt to new conditions. An apple tree will get attacked by a fungal disease, drop seeds, and those seeds are generally more likely to be resistant to that disease!

In other words, seeds adapt over time.

One of my favorite examples of this is Joel Salatin’s tomatoes. These tomato seeds have been planted, saved, and replanted for multiple generations at this point every year. Because the seeds have stored the information on the local growing conditions, they are now the best tomato variety for that area!

I’ll get more into this in the next section.

Breeding/Landraces

This brings me to seed breeding.

Seed breeding isn’t something that needs to be done in a laboratory or by fancy scientists only. It’s actually more approachable than you’d expect!

Mark Shepard of New Forest Farm (author of Restoration Agriculture) likes to use what he calls the “STUN” method for breeding for resilience in his plants:

Sheer, Total, Utter, Neglect.

He simply neglects his trees and plants, replants the ones that survive, and neglects those. He has done this enough that now after a few decades, he has plants so resilient they are hard to kill!

Permaculture YouTuber David The Good (his YouTube channel can be found here) takes the related “landrace” approach.

A landrace is where you gather a bunch of different seeds for different varieties of a plant, sow them, let them cross, and save the offspring. Over time this breeds a variety of plant that is almost perfectly suited to your specific climate!

Some plants cross easier than others, and some have very limited genes to begin with (Physalis species for example have pretty low genetic diversity) but it can be done with a lot of plants. Melons, squash, and other easily “tainted” seeds tend to be pretty easy to do landraces with, whereas species that have a tough time crossing naturally will be significantly harder to landrace (not impossible though).

This may result in some odd crosses, but if you replant the ones you like best and continue doing that then after roughly 5-7 generations, you’ll have stabilized the genes enough to get pretty consistent results!

That 5-7 generations rule seems fairly consistent even within animal populations by the way. I have heard of farmers using a similar principle with sheep to breed ones that do really well raised on pasture rather than grain-fed!

Note too how I said “generations” not “years”.

Some plants can take much longer to produce seeds than others, and some can have multiple successions in one single season. I recommend starting small and simple, but any way you choose to start is better than never starting!

Tree Seeds

One important thing to clear up is that if you were to plant long-living perennials from seed, then generally speaking they will not grow true-to-type.

This means that if you were to plant the seed of a Honeycrisp apple, you wouldn’t end up with a Honeycrisp, it would be some other kind of apple.

“How do people make other Honeycrisp trees then?”

This is actually because (like bananas) people are actually cloning the tree.

This is done by grafting the branches of the original Honeycrisp tree onto another tree. (The "rootstock).

You may have heard “Fruit trees aren’t worth growing from seed, you’re unlikely to ever get anything edible”.

There’s a grain of truth in that, but it’s not as rare to get a decent fruit as you might think.

The main factor that determines what you get from the seed is the genetic line that it was grown from. Ideally you want to plant a seed that was cross-pollinated by two good varieties. Preferably ones that were crosses between other good varieties.

So with enough good genes, you can maximize your chances of getting a decent (or even delicious) fruit.

Steven Edholm (YouTube channel here) actually crosses heirloom varieties of apples to get a wide range of genetics, then selects them into delicious apple cultivars. (I highly recommend his channel by the way, very underrated!)

I’ve also heard of people having a pretty high success rate growing peaches from seed!

I personally think it’s always worth trying if only to expand the pool of available genes.

Seed Starting

The following will be slightly more technical information. I’m just going to list off a bunch of helpful things to note that should be pretty valuable to you (especially if you’re new to growing plants from seed):

General Terms

Here are some definitions for you in case you’re new to seed starting or need a refresher (feel free to copy this or screenshot it for reference!):

• Germination: When a seed sprouts.

• Humidity: Moisture level in the air.

• Depth: How deep to plant a seed.

• Days to Maturity: How long it takes a plant to go from seed to full size (NOT how long it takes to get ripe fruit!)

• Stratification: Simulating the natural conditions a seed needs to germinate.

• Scarification: Scuffing or breaking the hard seed shell before planting to simulate what happens to it in the wild.

• Variety: A classification that is more specific than “species” or “subspecies”.

• Cultivar: An intentionally selected variety (short for “cultivated variety”).

• Annual/Perennial/Biennial: Annuals are plants that go to seed within a year, biennials go to seed every two years, and perennials are plants that live longer than 2 years.

• Open-Pollinated: Seeds that have been pollinated by natural means (via wind etc) which results in seeds with high genetic diversity.

• GMO: Seed that comes from a “genetically modified organism”. This is sometimes called “genetically engineered” and refers to artificial ways of altering a plant’s genetic makeup. This often results in potential health risks, and ecological damage on top of corporate control and seed patenting.

• Hybrid: An intentional cross between two specific varieties. This can be done several natural ways, but some hybrids are sterile (can’t reproduce) so keep in mind which ones you buy.

• Heirloom: A seed that has cultural significance AND is open-pollinated, often has been passed down to multiple generations of people. Often these are very old seeds, but there are newer heirlooms coming onto the market now as well!

• Frost Date: A frost date is the date at which the nighttime temperatures go below 32°F (0°C). The first frost is in the fall/winter, and the last frost date is in the late winter/early spring depending on your climate.

• Hardening Off: Acclimating young seedlings to outdoor temperatures.

• Determinate: Plants that reach a predetermined size, produce all at once and slowly taper off. (Usually in reference to tomatoes.)

• Indeterminate: Plants that continue to produce throughout the whole season and grow continuously. (Usually in reference to tomatoes.)

Rules of Thumb

There are a few general rules of thumb that can help you when starting seeds:

• Plant seeds at a depth of 2x their diameter.

• Overwatering is more common than underwatering.

• Any plants that are NOT listed as frost hardy should be started early indoors.

• If the soil feels dry to the touch, it needs water. If a little bit sticks to your finger, then it doesn’t need water.

• Perennials take longer to grow from seed than annuals or biennials.

• Some seeds take a long time to germinate (Allium tricoccum seeds take anywhere from 6-18 months just to sprout!)

Winter Sowing

Winter sowing is getting quite popular here in the colder regions of the US. This involves starting certain seeds outdoors while there is snow on the ground so that they sprout as soon as the conditions are right.

This may sound counterintuitive, but there are a number of advantages: Firstly, you don’t have to harden off the seedlings. They are already acclimated to outdoor temperatures. Secondly, you don’t need any fancy or expensive grow lights or indoor setup. Thirdly, you don’t need to keep the seeds watered as rain and snow will water them enough outdoors.

Some seeds do a lot better directly sown onto soil then covered back up with snow (such as poppies for example) but most will do better when covered with something to keep them a bit warmer. I have mostly seen people use milk jugs (I have done this myself) or larger plastic totes to create a greenhouse effect which warms the soil and the air underneath just enough to get plants to sprout in a stable environment.

My main issue with the milk jug method is that most people tape them shut which requires you to buy tape constantly and is very messy to remove when it’s time to uncover your seedlings. I will be experimenting this year with a version of this that doesn’t require tape so I can continue to reuse the same containers over and over instead of creating more waste.

Woody Perennials From Seed

For trees, shrubs, and other woody perennials, growing from seed is somewhat different.

You will need basic knowledge of each individual species in order to correctly grow from seed, but the best general advice I can give is to simulate how the wild would naturally grow them.

Peach trees for example normally would have microbes, weather, and freeze-thaw cycles that wear down the outer shell. To simulate this, people will crack open the outer shell (scarification) to allow water to penetrate it better.

Many cold climate seeds will need to be cold stratified in order to germinate. This involves keeping them in a refrigerator or something for a length of time, or in a colder climate, plant them when they’d normally be planted and let them be exposed to the cold temperatures.

Working with the natural laws is often so much easier than trying to follow manmade ideals.

Seed saving

Seed saving can be very powerful as you’ve seen in this article.

Not only do we get free seed to replant things, but we can control how the genetics on our site form and over time we can use that to build resilience.

Saving seed also keeps genes in the pool and can uncover traits we might need at some point (for example, sometimes a plant disease nearly wipes out a population but if we have enough genes to pull from, we’re more likely to find one that is resistant to the disease).

Seedless varieties may be more palatable in some cases, but we risk losing that crop all together if we don’t continue to grow plants from seed.

Tips

There are a few main principles of seed saving that everyone should know:

1. Try to save seed from open-pollinated plants to ensure genetic diversity.

2. Harvest when the plant is fully mature (look for dried seed pods etc)

3. Separate seeds from organic debris (some seeds can be sifted, some do better when washed).

4. Dry seeds to prevent mold.

5. Rotating which seed group you plant can minimize potential disease issues.

Wild Seed

There are a lot of advantages to saving wild seeds.

It’s a good practice to spread wild and native seeds to encourage ecological health, but it can also bring some much-needed diversity into the garden when you want to cross with a wild variety you’ve found.

One of the best apples I’ve eaten is a wild one that I found at a doctor’s office! I intend to grow out those seeds and see what comes from it this year but I never would’ve found it if it hadn’t been grown from seed.

If you find something you enjoy in the wild, save seeds! Try to grow it out and help it thrive or cross it with another great plant variety!

I hope this inspires you to consider seeds and the potential they hold. The implications of what can be done with seeds are pretty crazy to think about!

If this was at all helpful or you have some seed-goals for 2024, reply to this email and let me know!

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Pete