Seed Growers Struggling with Climate Change New Article

[William Schlegel]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/farmers-reveal-unsettling-reason-they-are-struggling-to-produce-seeds-it-s-a-lot-more-time-for-things-to-go-wrong/ar-AA1meg1k?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=78a2379b645646bddac0b31b4a9713fa&ei=25

Clicked into this and was surprised it was vegetable seed growers.

[Kadence Luneman]

Yep makes sense. We are doing things to affect the climate. The climate is changing and causing alot of havoc. Our systems are rigid and aren't allowing for change.

Eventually it has to give somewhere.

[A. Pel]

Good article. I can see how this is very concerning for the medium and large scale seed growers - all the more reason for people to save their own seed.

For me (the small scale seed saver) the problem is cold and damp, not heat, and most annuals and biennials will not reliably set seed for me. In order to save their seed I tend to dig up the ones I want to breed from and re-plant them in the corner of a greenhouse. This also serves as a nice isolation mechanism.

This has worked well for alliums, beets, parsnips, carrots, radish etc. I have found that pretty much every vegetable will tolerate being dug up and transplanted and will still set seed. I think this may be that because I am only doing a few of them 6-12 of each variety I can afford to take a lot of soil with them when transplanting.

Of course one worries about genetic diversity when using such a small number of parents. Nowadays my veggies are pretty much all from my own saved seed but each year some seeds from packets (even F1 hybrids) are planted and if they do well the resulting plants are chucked into the gene pool in the following year.

I used to worry about introducing new varieties and potentially destroying my lines. After reading Lofthouse's work on the subject (thanks Joseph) I decided to stop being so precious about it and just throw the good ones into the mix, whatever the source, and cull like mad. I keep seeds from years gone by so if things really go wrong I can easily revert.

Especially with biennials, the dig up and replant mechanism is a nice combination of only breeding from the plants do well outdoors in the garden with the indoor isolation and production of seed.

[Steph S]

Another climate change issue which they didn't mention is seedborne diseases.   
Not only extreme weather (golf ball hail is pretty definitive of a plant disaster though!), hotter temperatures overall are accompanied by higher humidity.  There's just more water vapor being carried around in the warmer air.  That is delightful for fungal blights.

I was lucky that my brassica seeds were harvested before it got blighty this past summer, so they're doing fine in new potting mix without any disease carryover.
The lettuce seed tops got covered in some black mold stuff, and whatever seeds I got I wouldn't think of starting them without a treatment.
Likewise grains had two or three fungal diseases happening, definitely need a treatment before sowing again.
Tomato seeds too, even though I saved early before the blight got really bad.
The things that stand out in a humid year are the ones with no problems!

[Jeremy Weiss]

Also, the only thing that keeps some hyper invasives from taking over is the cold. The "Kudzu Line" is already in the middle of New Jersey, with patches as far north as Quebec (there's actually one right by me, though it's tiny.) What happends when it gets warm enough the REAL line (not where kudzu can live, but where it grows so well it pretty much takes everything over, extends all the way up to the top of the North American Landmass (if I recall, there either little or no land actually under the North Pole, unlike Antarctica, so there is a bit of a boundary.) Worse, what happens when it's warm enough for the OTHER Kudzu, the tropical one (Pueraria phraseoloides) can get up here and cross the the trioloba, it grows even FASTER. We've got a TON of pests who are only kept in check a bit by cold, take that away and we're in trouble.     

[stone]

Georgia was mentioned for not enough chill hours... But the writer failed to mention the late freeze in March that killed the fruit set on ALL the tree fruit.... except the pawpaws...

The early freeze in the previous December wasn't too helpful either.

I try to garden with saved seeds... but the drought stacked on top of the other issues impacted even the goal of landrace crops...

Climate change is real, and something we need to plan for....

Anyone have ideas and successes they can share?

[Steph S]

Stone, I've been thinking about the need to put backup seed in a freezer for long term storage.
I haven't done it as yet, but it may be the only way to forestall the unexpected failures.

One really viable thing we do is having a seed network for exchanges and/or a yearly swap.
I participate in a cross Canada swap every year, so the surplus seed I have saved (or some of it at least!) gets distributed to other gardeners, and I get a bunch of things I didn't grow. 
I've had big gaps sometimes that have been generously filled!!  One year I had nothing but tomato and pepper seeds and got sent a slew of different vegetables.
There used to be lots of free exchange across the border but there have been a lot of difficulties in the past two years, restrictions plus being forced to send declared parcel post instead of a card, making the postage really pricey.
I notice that the MMMM is including a lot more seeds now, not just the tomato seed insanity.  You should check it out if you're short seeds for next season.  Folks are happy to sponsor anyone who had a crop failure or just didn't grow seeds.  I would send you seeds myself in a flash if not for the cross border hassles.