sunfish

Richard

The Aztecs used Salvia potus and the Mayans used Salvia hispanica. I wonder which seed they are really selling?

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lkailburn

I've watched quite a few documentaries covering Percy's trial, what exactly about his story makes you feel that he is purposely confusing people?

-Luke

Richard

My reference was to Baker Creek. Percy Schmeiser is not associated with them and I did not intend to imply anything about him.

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lkailburn

Ah my misunderstanding then. I do actually purchase many seeds through baker creek. They carry a great selection of heirlooms!

-Luke

Richard

Have you ever tried Tomato Growers Supply Company ?
Their pricing and selection is hard to beat.

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lkailburn

I've got their catalog right here!

-Luke

harveyc

I've been to Baker Creek's Petaluma store which they opened up a few years ago. They do have a good selection. I am a little concerned about them after reading comments at the forums on tomatoville.com from people who received mislabeled or poor quality seeds from them. The melon seeds I bought from them were fine, though.

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venturabananas

Do you really believe this? Let's take an extreme case, bananas and BBTV. First, as far as I know, there are no resistant cultivars. Second, breeding edible bananas is extremely slow, because so few produce seeds and even when they do, they make few. Let's assume there are no bananas resistant to BBTV so you can't breed that trait into existing varieties. Are you going to wait for a gene to mutate? I hope you're patient. And have potentially thousands of years to wait. Imagine now that you wanted to grow bananas in Africa, where they are a staple source of carbohydrates for much of the impoverished populace, and BBTV had wiped out most of the banana production. You'd still think making a GM banana with a gene for BBTV resistance was just lazy?

We act as if heirloom varieties and "traditional" hybrids are somehow "natural". They would never have occurred in nature without "artificial" selection by humans. They really aren't all that different from GM crops.

All this said, I completely agree that there are lots of great varieties of food plants that are resistant to diseases, better suited to certain climates, etc. and could be planted to avoid use of pesticides, have more sustainable agriculture, etc. But in extreme cases, such as my fabricated BBTV example, I would have no problem with making, growing, or eating GM crops.

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lkailburn

Overstatement of the year right there. GMO's are NOTHING like heirlooms. C'mon you know this. Letting nature breed, and selecting the best to save seed for next year is no where close to gene splicing, and injecting with gold or tungston particles or lasers to FORCE genes at the cellular level.

Now you bring up a good point that there is POTENTIAL morality with GMOs, however I highly doubt that ANY of the current creators or owners of GMOs or their patents honestly are doing it for morals or for helping the planet in any way shape or form.
Wallets are their bottom line

-Luke

sunfish

GloFish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

harveyc

I suppose people with morals work for free?

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sunfish

No they live off tax payers money

Richard

U.S. case law has established that heirloom seed must meet two requirements: (1) be off-patent, and (2) reproduce true-to-phenotype from seed.

There are GMO heirlooms -- although I'm not aware of any that are tomatoes.

Most seed sold to consumers are heirloom -- even if they aren't labeled as such. For example, the commercial seed source for Burpee's Better Boy Tomato is from a stable hybrid, not F1 breeding.

Check out what nature does with plants in areas where naturally occurring radioactive material is at the surface! This is where the 200 year-old technique of producing seedless and thornless varieties of plants comes from.

Your statement would be correct if you said "the majority" instead of "ANY". There is on-going GMO work at UC Davis plus commercial firms in San Diego and Raleigh (maybe more) that are concerned with food quality and sustainability.

Actually many work at for-profit firms.

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lkailburn

Absolutely not, and that's not what I implied, nor was it the point of my post. But you can't justify some of the things these mega agro corps are doing just based on "well a company has to make money".

-Luke

Richard

In my opinion, the worst of them is Agrium Inc.

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lkailburn

A non-patented GMO?

-Luke

Richard

Plant patents expire, hence the term "off-patent".

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venturabananas

I fully appreciate the difference between breeding plants and selecting traits among progeny and creating GMOs, but philosophically, they are not that different. Both involve humans meddling with nature. You say "letting nature breed". That is not what has happened with heirlooms. They have been produced by humans breeding plants for certain traits. Those plants do not occur in nature and most likely could not persist without human assistance. There is nothing natural about it, unless you take the philosophical viewpoint that humans are part of nature and anything we do is natural (which you could defend, rationally).

Viruses and plasmids have "forced" genes at the cellular level for millions of years. Must be part of nature, right?

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momoese

Selective breeding and gene splicing are very different.