Experimental Farm Network 2024 catalog released

[Garrett Schantz]

This has been out for a little while now.


But, as always. There's some neat things which aren't found anywhere else.


They request things from seedbanks or go on expeditions.




For one, they're now offering a few types of Sabal minor.


Many types of Plantago maritima. There's also a red variant of Plantago major.


Plantago maritima, can have a salty taste and tolerate salt in the soil.

This is one of the only places even selling the species, let alone accessions, to my knowledge.




There's multiple types of Sea Buckthorn / Hippophae species being sold. I'm not 100% sure if they're all the same species or not.





Caucasian Wild Beet - Beta trigyna.

Obtaining any relatives of Beta vulgaris, in the United States, is pretty difficult.

As of right now, they're sold out of Beta trigyna.


Gnarly Long-Lived Beet Leaf Mix, would be a fun companion, if anyone were trying to obtain hybrids.




They're actually selling a few rare or interesting root crops.


They've dubbed one species, "Space Carrot."

Astrodaucus littoralis.


Probably related to Seombaldi, Dystaenia takesimana. Plus, carrots.

And Skirret. Those last two, are out of stock.

They're also selling American ground nuts - Apios americana.


The seeds are from New Jersey, foraged.

The tubers, are Billington Hopniss. Louisiana and western Montana.


The seeds are probably worth buying, if someone wanted to start a project, and wanted some tubers.


Another fun tuber to grow is Cyperus esculentus - Tigernut. They have small tubers, just like American Groundnut. Unfortunately, that's not offered.



Saggitaria latifolia, Wapato / Duck potato. That's also being sold. This is a crop which would prefer to be submerged in water. But it's a tuber.





They're also selling many Opuntia species, as per usual.




Now Vigna.

Promiscuous Peas - African pea breeding mix.

Vigna unguiculata.


This is the beginning of an ultracross project.

The mix contains "sports", which were likely crosses. Plus Joseph's landrace African peas.


Many things were grown out, side by side or whatever.



They're also selling Madagascar Blue Mottled Mung bean. Vigna radiata.


They look pretty pleasant. Visually.






I have my eye on a few things. I may or may not place an order.


Dateplum Persimmon - Diospyros lotus.

Giving Tree Persimmon - Diospyros virginiana.


There was a breeding mix, which included two 13% kaki hybrids. Mostly, a Diospyros virginiana mix.

That's out of stock.





Sanshuyu, Cornus officinalis.




Nanking bush cherry - Prunus tomentosa.

Select Golden & Purple Beach Plum - Prunus martima.

Cherry Plum - Prunus cerasifera.


Many of these Prunus species, aren't widely known or used in the United States. Beach Plum is iffy.



They're also selling a legume - Buffalo Plum or Astragalus crassicarpus. It's not a Plum, but I'm interested in it.




They're also selling Sea Marigold / Calendula maritima. There's also Sea Kale, and other plants which can take some salt.


This Calendula species may be considered endangered in some places.

Well, it's considered critically endangered. To me, that's reason enough to grow it.

This was obtained by EFN, from a seedbank - the USDA.




There's also the usual, Perennial Creeping Cucumber. It's now called a possible breeding mix, because it was grown side by side with Melorthria scabra.


My Cucrbits came out of dormancy too early. I was growing some distant relatives.



Odd stuff happened.




I found local Melothria pendula plants last year. They'll likely return. I'd still grow these out, and possibly try to add those others into the mix.




There's also Perennial Thicket bean, Eastern Redbud, Turkish Rocket.


All sorts of things which have returned to the catalog.





I'm simply pointing a few things of interest out.


With some current things going on all around the world, I've been considering getting some naturalizers.


This includes trees - Pawpaws.



I've been tossing moudly blueberries and other things, into a dip in the ground out in the woods, and elsewhere.


Just because. Doesn't hurt to be safe.


Having edible forage, is a good thing.

[Jeremy Weiss]

I got the Madagascar Blue mottled and discovered, to my surprise, that they seem to be the same as the mottled mung beans I have been finding occasionally mixed into bags of "small" mung beans being imported from India. Based on the results from those, they certainly will grow quickly (they were done with their seed production well before the cold weather came, while most of the other ones I planted had to have the pot carried inside to give them time to mature.) On the other hand, the seeds are very small (small even compared to the normal "small" size mung beans), so how useful as a foodstuff might be questionable ( I suppose it depends on how small one wants the individual bits of dal to be, or how big your beansprouts.

I got the Apios as well, since it is the fertile version, and, as they pointed out, most patches in the North are the sterile one (though the ones around the lake in Ithaca were fertile, I wonder where they came from?)

I tried growing buffalo plum a few years ago. I don't think it's probably worth the effort (you get small pods that taste something like peas when they are immature) but that's my opinion.

I'm also testing the Tulsi they are offering (the one from the Maldives)   

[Garrett Schantz]

Yeah, with the Buffalo plums, I'd likely just grow them and let them naturalize. Probably wouldn't eat them, unless I needed to.



The Madagascar Mung beans, did look small in the shown images.




I've also forgotten to mention two other interesting things. They're out of stock now.


Tim Peter's Perennial Wheat Grex, and Salish Blue Perennial Wheat.



The first wheat - x Agrotriticum spp.

Agrotriticum, usually means a Triticum (Wheat), crossed into Agropyron.



Tim Peters seems to have put most of that grex together. Meshed in others Wheat populations.



Salish Blue, is a Triticum, Wheat - crossed into Thinopyrum intermedium.


Developed in around 2017, by Washington state university's bread lab.


Edgewood Nursery has a page on it. They're out of stock for the seed, as is the Experimental Farm Network.

Edgewood Nursery, does still have Beta trigyna seed.



Either way, those are two different types of Perennial Wheat. One, likely has high resistances to rust or something.


I don't really grow wheat, but I did go "That looks neat."



They're also still selling M61 Survivor Perennial Sorghum.



Some zone 9 plants sometimes act as perennials here. The Perennial Sorghums are usually noted to survive in zone 9.


Even being zone 8, this Sorghum would likely act as a Perennial here.



I haven't really grown Sorghum before.


There's quite a few hybrids in the genus. Fertile ones.


I'd like to grow those, if I am growing the other hybrid.



Sorghum, can also supposedly be inoculated with Agrobacterium.



I may have infected some Wisteria here (well others did), with Agrobacterium.


Back in Pennsylvania, our Forsythia had galls all over it.


It seems likely that it had Agrobacterium as an infection, in particular.



We trimmed it back, before moving.



The same loppers were used on the Wisteria, to cut them back.



When they began to regrow, they had white leaves, the leaves kept turning black, dying. Entire stems died off.



I haven't seen it begin to return yet.



But they looked very nice when we moved here.



Reminder to self, to clean tools. We didn't really do anything with fruit trees - never worried about cleaning I guess. There's a lesson learned.



I haven't been able to find out if working with the bacteria is legal or not. You'd likely be making a GMO by working with it. You can't buy it, that's illegal.



I've been interested in Foxtail Millet, Kodo Millet, Finger Millet, Proso Millet, Pearl Millet and Little Millet. And Japanese Millet.


Not to mention Corn.


These are all in the Poaceae.



Wheat is also in that family. As are some things that it's been crossed with.



There's different branches and things.



But, Agrobacterium, can be used to move genes / traits, over from one species to another.


This has been done with plants in different Orders.



Many of the mentioned Millets, used to be widely planted - now they've been replaced with other crops.


Japanese Millet, likely used to be way smaller in size.

But it's losing favor.



If corn or something can't be a host, it could still probably be mixed with the bacteria.


I believe that pollen is mixed in, or something. Then the mixture is used on the flowers of another plant.



Usually, genes are inserted, with whatever processes.


I'd assume that with close relatives, you could try to just mix over the whole thing.



But yeah. I'm interested in the Wheat and Sorghum, for a few reasons.

[Ferdzy]

I'm not going to order from Experimental Farm Network again, most likely, after our last experience. Which had nothing to do with EFN and everything to do with getting seeds across the border, to be fair.

However, it's interesting to see what they have and to sit here in a nice little state of pea-green envy of those who can order from them easily.

I'm interested in the "Whatsit" turnip, I've been getting into turnips the last few years. (See also Platte Witte Mei). There's more variety in turnips than most people realize. Got a Scarlet Ohno and Goldana to cross last year and judging by the seed that we missed and sprouted for the fall, there's going to be some fun stuff when we plant it this spring.

The sea-kale looks very nice.

Grew Bloody Butcher corn one year. One of the few that did well for us; the stalks are tall and strong enough to resist the crows, raccoons, squirrels, etc. Took 3 years to get those stalks out, in fact.

January King is our standard cabbage, although we let it cross with a bit of savoy.

Grew Legend tomato once, we both swore never again. It may be disease resistant but it tastes like crap.

Love the rutabaga mass-cross - we did the same but with far fewer varieties, but some of the ones there. I think we used Nadmorska, De Krosno, Ditmars Bronze Top, and Major Dunne. Although we did not in fact use Major Dunne because he went MIA over the winter. Been growing them out since, and I see they mentioned the greens - it turns out rutabaga greens are the best greens, and we have been selecting a little for that.

I see they have at least 2 elderberry selections, mentioning since some interest in elderberries here.

I hanker after those maypops. Oh yeah.

In short, all kinds of things I'd love to get my hot little hands on, had I but world enough and time.

[Steph S]

I saw that turnip with interest as well.  You can't beat a good turnip.  Will be interested to see how your cross turns out Ferdzy.

I recall, what, nearly 30 years ago, having my tree seeds from US seized by "the Queen" due to lack of phytosanitary certificate, and a major delay and additional cost, although I did eventually get them.  But the shipping of seeds either to or from the US has become exceedingly difficult as well as more costly in both directions, in the past couple of years.
It's too bad because I was very tempted by the Beach Plums and Nanking Cherries and so on, when I checked EFN back in January.   
Quite a few interesting grains for me there as well.
I didn't have a seed budget ready at the time, so they've now sold out a lot of the interesting stuff.

I do see some new things at Prairie Garden Seeds this year, which I might just have to get, even though I've yet to figure out how I'm going to make a voleproof bed for grains.  Voles didn't touch fava beans, so I might get a few of those too, even though we don't (so far) eat them.  Maybe get 'largest seeded' types into the mix and try to make it worthwhile.

[Ferdzy]

Prairie Gardens is great especially if you are interested in grains.

We actually have a couple of Nanking cherry bushes, although they are not what I would call prolific. Still, could probably manage to save you some pits this summer if you would like.

And I hope to post about the turnips once there is something to post about them.

[Jeremy Weiss]

I recall, what, nearly 30 years ago, having my tree seeds from US seized by "the Queen" due to lack of phytosanitary certificate, and a major delay and additional cost, although I did eventually get them.  But the shipping of seeds either to or from the US has become exceedingly difficult as well as more costly in both directions, in the past couple of years.
It's too bad because I was very tempted by the Beach Plums and Nanking Cherries and so on, when I checked EFN back in January.   

Not that much better the other way around either. I had my Salt Springs/Prairie Garden order confiscated a few months ago (the one from some years ago got through). Plus now, for more and more things, even getting a phytosanitary certificate isn't enough on its own; for anything that is going to grow into a tree or a woody vine, you now also have to get an import permit number as well. I'm seriously thinking applying for a small seed lots import license may become a necessity soon, no matter WHAT it costs.   

Voles didn't touch fava beans, so I might get a few of those too, even though we don't (so far) eat them.  Maybe get 'largest seeded' types into the mix and try to make it worthwhile.

Going by my (admittedly limited) experience in growing fava beans, there's a sort of tradeoff for the larger seeded ones. Large seeded ones produce, well, larger seeds, but the smaller seeded ones tend to be a bit quicker and more hardy.

Sort of similar to my experience with chickpeas, desi types (the small, hard, grinding ones from India) are smaller and produce smaller seeds (plus, you have to hull them to use them) but they will survive conditions that the thinner skinned kabouli types (the type most of us are used to)just won't.(like unusual cold or heat snaps).   

[Cathy A]

Given US law, I wouldn't even try to import seeds to the US. Fortunately we have a wide variety of seeds available domestically.

From what I've read, the US is one of the toughest places to import small quantities of seeds.

[Jeremy Weiss]

Given US law, I wouldn't even try to import seeds to the US. Fortunately we have a wide variety of seeds available domestically.

From what I've read, the US is one of the toughest places to import small quantities of seeds.

It depends on what you are after. A lot of the stuff I'm seeking is very rare, or tropical, and there often ISN'T a supplier in the US with it. Plus, a lot of the REALLY world wide seed clearing houses (like B&T World Seeds, or Rarepalmseeds.com, with networks to get seed from around the world, are in Europe.

And, as hard as it is to get seed into the US I understand it's even harder in Australia, where they are so concerned about invasives they basically won't let ANYTHING in, no matter WHO is offering it (personal or commercial).

[Steph S]

Prairie Gardens is great especially if you are interested in grains.

We actually have a couple of Nanking cherry bushes, although they are not what I would call prolific. Still, could probably manage to save you some pits this summer if you would like.

And I hope to post about the turnips once there is something to post about them.

I'll plant any pits I can get, so do grab me a few if you remember.   I love cherries, and I've been looking at all options to see what I might be able to get to grow. 
Seems like fall is the best time to stratify tree seeds, in any case.  I need to adjust my seasonal seed myopia and do it twice yearly instead.
We need more fruit in the landscape here.  I'm trying to think past the vegetable garden and really take a couple of years to add more focus on making the longer term (tree/shrub) stuff work. It's good for me to have a season to think about soil prep/site prep too.