Synopses & Reviews
All gardeners and farmers should be plant breeders, says author Carol Deppe. Developing new vegetable varieties doesn't require a specialized education, a lot of land, or even a lot of time. It can be done on any scale. It's enjoyable. It's deeply rewarding. You can get useful new varieties much faster than you might suppose. And you can eat your mistakes.
Authoritative and easy-to-understand, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's and Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving is the only guide to plant breeding and seed saving for the serious home gardener and the small-scale farmer or commercial grower. Discover:
how to breed for a wide range of different traits (flavor, size, shape, or color; cold or heat tolerance; pest and disease resistance; and regional adaptation)
how to save seed and maintain varieties
how to conduct your own variety trials and other farm- or garden-based research
how to breed for performance under organic or sustainable growing methods
In this one-size-fits-all world of multinational seed companies, plant patents, and biotech monopolies, more and more gardeners and farmers are recognizing that they need to "take back their seeds." They need to save more of their own seed, grow and maintain the best traditional and regional varieties, and develop more of their own unique new varieties. Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's and Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving shows the way, and offers an exciting introduction to a whole new gardening adventure.Review
"Deppe invites you on a journey of discovery to reclaim the lost lore of our ancestors, to relearn the traditions of seed-saving and seed-breeding and to take back control of the seed.
Within you will find information not available in other garden books or anywhere else. Learn how to design trials, why and how far apart to isolate varieties for purity, how to understand and appreciate the subtleties of selection and why the detailed artistry of classical plant breeding makes most genetic engineering look like the work of simpletons.
Here is a woman who knows seeds, who knows the ineffable joys working with them brings, and who has penetrated deeply into the mysteries of their inner workings. She can be your guide as you chart your own path to restore and renew a time-honored tradition one experiment at a time."
C. R. Lawn, Fedco Seeds
Review
"Any gardener interested in vegetable plant breeding must have this book. It is the standard reference. But it is also much more than that. Deppe's grasp of the intricacies of plant life will enlighten food lovers as well as general readers. Thank you Carol Deppe!"
--Michael MacCaskey, Editor-in-Chief, NationalGardening.com
Review
There is nothing quite like this book in the world's literature--it is the Hope diamond of horticulture. In the field of edible plants, Carol Deppe is a modest legend who has been a matchmaker and midwife to many new vegetables.
In this book, Ms. Deppe explains how she and a few other masters of plant breeding have achieved their success. She encourages the rest of us to try our hands and hearts--and patience--at producing our own culinary gems. Ms. Deppe, who combines a doctorate in plant genetics with insatiable curiosity and soil-stained hands, will continue to inspire growers to participate in a creative process as ancient as farming itself.
This book is an intense and readable exposition of the science and art of plant breeding, which will inspire and inform any reader. Even the casual reader who doesn't take up the challenge of developing unique garden specialties will become aware of humanity's debt to our predecessors, who turned wildlings into the organisms that can feed all of us. Ms. Deppe deserves a special pedestal in the company of her kindred spirits for this book, a revised version of a work originally published in 1993.
John F. SwensonVolunteer, Plant Information Office, Chicago Botanic Garden.
Review
"Deppe invites you on a journey of discovery to reclaim the lost lore of our ancestors, to relearn the traditions of seed-saving and seed-breeding and to take back control of the seed.
Within you will find information not available in other garden books or anywhere else. Learn how to design trials, why and how far apart to isolate varieties for purity, how to understand and appreciate the subtleties of selection and why the detailed artistry of classical plant breeding makes most genetic engineering look like the work of simpletons.
Here is a woman who knows seeds, who knows the ineffable joys working with them brings, and who has penetrated deeply into the mysteries of their inner workings. She can be your guide as you chart your own path to restore and renew a time-honored tradition one experiment at a time."
C. R. Lawn, Fedco Seeds
Review
"The gardening book of the decade." --Ken Allen
Review
"Deppe has done Luther Burbank one better. She has bred many significant new varieties and now has provided the instructions for others to follow her lead. Great Work. Great Book."
--Suzanne Ashworth, author of Seed to Seed
Review
"So new and unique that it could truly be called one of a kind . . . [it's] unlike any other book on the market . . . Certain to change the way many growers see the act of gardening."
--Don Parker, Publisher, The Growing Edge
About the Author
Carol Deppe is a plant breeder and writer who lives in Corvallis, Oregon. She has a B.S. in Zoology from University of Florida and a Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University. "At least I think I have a Ph.D. from Harvard," Deppe says. "But when I got the diploma it was in Latin, and I don't read Latin, so who knows?" Deppe's garden and science writing has appeared in Horticulture, Organic Gardening, National Gardening, and elsewhere. She works to develop crops for sustainable agriculture.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction to the Original Edition xi
Introduction to the Second Edition xiv
How to Use This Book xvi
Part I: An Introduction to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving1 Amateur Vegetable Breeding 3Why every gardener should be a plant breeder. Stories of three amateurs and what they've done.
2 How Much Space Do You Need? How Much Time? 17Vegetable breeding can be done on any scale. You can do an elaborate tomato-breeding project in a few half-gallon pots of soil, or a pea-breeding project in a few feet of row. Some projects require only a year or two to produce material that is an improvement over anything available commercially.
3 Roles and Goals for Amateurs; Wish Lists and Wild Ideas 23Breeding for flavor. Breeding for size, shape, color, earliness, cold or heat resistance, disease resistance, regional adaptation, yield. Breeding as an expression of individuality, for your tastes and needs. Breeding varieties that do well under organic gardening or farming methods. Breeding new and unusual crops. Discovering popbeans and tiny fast-cooking chickpeas (garbanzos). Thinking small, thinking big, daring to dream.
4 Finding Germplasm 42Obtaining germplasm and information about it. How to work with seed companies, seed saving organizations, and plant science professionals. How to gain access to and use the collections of the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System.
5 Evaluating Germplasm and Experimental Material; Variety Trials and Gardening Research 54How to design, conduct, and evaluate garden trials. How to combine trials with production of food and beauty. How to get good information with the least amount of land and labor.
6 Genetics and Plant Parenthood 777 Sex and the Single Gene; Mendel's Genes 858 Modern Genes 939 The Genetic Basis of Seed Saving 111Inbreeding and the genetic nature of inbreeding crop varieties. Saving seed from inbreeders. Heirlooms. Outbreeding and the genetic nature of outbreeding crop varieties. Inbreeding depression. Outcrossing and self-incompatibility. Saving seed of outbreeders. Inbreeder or outbreeder - how you can tell? Saving seed from hybrids. Making and breaking hybrids.
10 Plant Breeding Stories 126Popbeans and purple peas. Perennial vegetable buckwheat and perennial lettuce-salsify. Power selection, power inbreeding, crosses, backcrosses, and recurrent backcrossing. 'Rainbow Inca' sweet corn. Tomatoes, squash, and melons.
11 Bigger, Brighter, and More Beautiful 148Creating polyploids. Chromosome doubling using colchicine. Breeding with established polyploids.
12 Fun with Wide Crosses 152Crosses between distant relatives within a species. Crosses between different species. Creating entirely new crop species.
13 Happy Accidents 156Taking advantage of new mutations, sports, bud sports, and accidental crosses. More cold-hardy fava beans, bigger tomatoes, and giant top-setting onions.
14 Domesticating Wild Plants 16315 Expanding Horizons 172Table I 801 Interesting Plants 175Vegetables of the world and their wild relatives; edible plants that have the potential for being developed into vegetables; fruits, nuts, and grains. Scientific names, common names, families, and lifestyles. Basic breeding systems, chromosome numbers, flowering patterns, flower types and modifications, average cross-pollination frequency, major pollen vectors, and incompatibility system information. Recommended isolation distances, seed yields, location in the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System, and references.
Part II: Seed Saving Practice16 An Introduction to Seed Saving 209Why save seeds? Seed-saving overview. Saving seed from hybrids. Roles and purposes.
17 Growing Seed 213Preparation and planning, planting, tending.
18 Isolation 218Traditional seed saving and isolation distances. Isolation distances for organic farmers and gardeners. Isolation basics. Factors that affect the need for isolation. Isolation distances, absolute and practical. The Basic Rule for Everyday Seed Saving. Isolation tricks and methods.
19 How Many Plants? 232Inbreeders and outbreeders. Practical compromises.
20 Selection 237Selection basics. Selection complexities, subtleties, and surprises. Selection for the purpose of germplasm preservation. Evaluating a selection program. Does selection always work?
21 Harvesting, Processing, and Storing Seed 243Harvesting, threshing and cleaning. Dry and wet processing. Drying seed. Protecting seed from insects and rodents. Storing seed.
Part III: Developing Crops for a Sustainable Future22 Genetic Engineering and Genetically Modified Foods 261Carol Deppe meets the FlavrSavr tomato. Standard plant breeding versus genetic engineering. Everything in this book is illegal with genetically engineered varieties. Genetic engineering and sustainable agriculture.
23 Conversations with a Squash 272Why not just select? Choosing the right cross. The agroecological virtues of a squash. The grand plan. Choosing the cytoplasm. The reality. The squash speaks. Carol falls in love. Disaster and opportunity. Sandwich-slice. To market, to market, to sell a new squash.
Appendix A Breeding and Seed Saving for Eight Common Vegetables - An Illustrated Guide 291
Tomato 291
Lettuce 296
Pea 299
Common Bean 304
Alliums (Onions) 309
Brassicas (Cabbage and Relatives) 311
Squash and Pumpkins 314
Corn (Maize) 317
Appendix B Technical Aspects of Hand-Pollination and Performing Crosses; Overcoming Incompatibility Barriers 322
Appendix C USDA-ARS Plant Introduction Stations and Germplasm Collections; Using GRIN (Germplasm Resources Information Network) 332
Appendix D Addresses of Seed Saver Exchanges, Seed Companies, and Organizations 335
Appendix E Sources for Seed Saving, Plant Breeding, and Garden Research Supplies 339
Appendix F Statistical Predictions and Actuality 340
Glossary 341
Annotated Bibliography 347
Index