Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's & Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding & Seed Saving

701 Pages·2000·7.5 MB·English

by  Carol Deppe

This boob is dedicated to Henry M. Wallbrunn, beloved teacher, mentor, and
friend.
The Gardener's and Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving
CAROL DEPPE
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 Saving
1 Amateur Vegetable Breeding 3
Why 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? 17
Vegetable breeding can be done on any scale. You can do an elaborate
tomatobreeding 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 23
Breeding 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 42
Obtaining 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 USDAARS National Plant
Germplasm System.
5 Evaluating Germplasm and Experimental Material; Variety Trials and
Gardening Research 54
How 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 77
7 Sex and the Single Gene; Mendel's Genes 85
8 Modern Genes 93
9 The Genetic Basis of Seed Saving 111
Inbreeding 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 126
Popbeans and purple peas. Perennial vegetable buckwheat and perennial
lettucesalsify. Power selection, power inbreeding, crosses, backcrosses, and
recurrent backcrossing. `Rainbow Inca' sweet corn. Tomatoes, squash, and
melons.
11 Bigger, Brighter, and More Beautiful 148
Creating polyploids. Chromosome doubling using colchicine. Breeding with
established polyploids.
12 Fun with Wide Crosses 152
Crosses between distant relatives within a species. Crosses between different
species. Creating entirely new crop species.
13 Happy Accidents 156
Taking 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 163
15 Expanding Horizons 172
Table I: 801 Interesting Plants 175
Vegetables 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 USDAARS National Plant Germplasm System, and
references.
Part II: Seed Saving Practice
16 An Introduction to Seed Saving 209
Why save seeds? Seed-saving overview. Saving seed from hybrids. Roles and
purposes.
17 Growing Seed 213
Preparation and planning, planting, tending.
18 Isolation 218
Traditional 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? 232
Inbreeders and outbreeders. Practical compromises.
20 Selection 237
Selection 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 243
Harvesting, threshing and cleaning. Dry and wet processing. Drying seed.
Protecting seed from insects and rodents. Storing seed.
Part III: Developing Crops for a Sustainable Future
22 Genetic Engineering and Genetically Modified Foods 261
Carol 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 272
Why 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