Terminator Technology. Genetically Modified Organisms. Bt toxin in your cereal, salad, corn and potato chips. Patent genes. Genetic trespass. All this headline news is enough to make a person wonder. Where do all these great ideas come from anyway? Who thinks all this is a good idea? Aren’t there any ethical, environmentally minded mad scientists out there? Is the sole purpose of genetic research and development the monopolization of power? From an earthman’s point of view things are pretty unsatisfactory in the big seed realm. We used to have to worry that the heirloom varieties might disappear from commercial neglect. Now we have to worry that they might reappear as a patented variety with one form of killer gene or another attached to it.

If we don’t like that sinking feeling of having diminished options handed down to us, at least we have Carol Deppe’s newly republished book, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener’s and Farmer’s Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving (Chelsea Green, 2000).I suggest that GFM readers itching for a little direct action on world improvement get this book and set to work enjoying the creative passion of breeding plants you can love.
In a rare style that combines science and storytelling with personal experience and authoritative reference, Deppe (rhymes with “peppy”) leads us through the arcane circles of genetic plantcrafting. From the unconscious and intuitive processes our forebears began l0,000 years ago, through the prescient insights of Gregor Mendel and his meticulous accounting of seven pea traits across generations, to the modern techniques of single-gene manipulation, Deppe explains the power and shortcomings of genetic shepherding in all its possible contexts. But the context she really dwells within is the farm and garden, close to the heart of the everyday breeder. Her point is that professional breeders are working outside the environments where their varieties will be grown next (especially by folks like us), and no matter how perfect the variety is where it came from, it likely has flaws once it gets out in the world. Local soils, diseases, and climates – not to mention personal preferences – raise hell with the one-size-should-fit mentality that drives the search for “widely adapted cultivars”. Deppe’s conviction is that the best fit between the cultivar and the cultivator can be made locally, like in the back yard or back forty.

So where do new varieties come from anyway? Why aren’t there any good melons in your neck of the woods? What can you do about that? How might you tame a favorite hybrid? How can I improve my dandelions? And what about a purple snap pea or a popping chickpea? The author’s voice is amazingly conversational as she answers the subtle questions of the quiet and profound work at hand. How many plants, how much time and space? What do you select for first? Which plants cross pollinate by design and which are the natural inbreeders? What difference does this make? Deppe gives us 10 different techniques for shuffling and dealing out new genetic arrangements, and 27 considerations to mull as we try to select the winning hands. Her personal accounts illuminate how we access the USDA seed collection, the traits that contribute to a slug resistant pea, and why bristly hairs on a mustard leaf might be an asset in an organic world.

By relating breeding stories of several amateur breeders and their plants, Deppe illustrates both the idiosyncratic and systematic approaches that have yielded useful and unusual cultivars of watermelon, corn, potatoes, broccoli, squash, wildlings and weeds, peas and beans and more. The accounts are empowering and inspirational to the point that they just may change what you do for fun or profit. After reading the book’s first edition in December of l993, we were encouraged to begin offering our own varieties and genetic mixes by catalog and through other seed companies. Not only that, suddenly I had some idea of what I’d been doing for the previous 10 years, and why some experiments proceeded smoothly and others seemed to go nowhere. This book is a string that can lead us through the labyrinth of twentieth century genetics toward a new farming landscape, one greened diversely by the seeds of its own design.

If this sounds like too much trouble, consider the alternatives.