I made the switch to all heirloom or open-pollinated seed varieties in 2009. My main concern in doing this was saving my own seed in order to reduce future seed costs and to have the ability to trade seed with other gardening friends. Saving seed for me is a great connection to the earth, and completes the life cycle. The whole point of a fruit, after all, is seed dispersal.
Some home gardeners swear by hybrids and love to buy them. And they do. Every year. I have no problem with people planting hybrids. The companies develop them to have disease resistance, grow in less than favorable conditions, such as less water or maybe less sunlight. Some also have more herbicide resistance as well. Almost all commercial varieties of crops are hybrids.
A modern seed company will make most or all of its monies from the sale of hybrid seeds. I have no problem with this at all. Hybrids can be a great option for beginning gardeners who want to grow successful produce without extra work. Hybrid seeds often come with a large markup because the company must make new hybrid seed every year. They hand-pollinate Proprietary Parent #1 with Proprietary Parent #2 and harvest all the seed from the fruits grown. This is an F1 Hybrid and the seeds from those fruits (now called F2) will not grow “true” if planted, but will show various traits of each or both parents.
The problem comes in when I was reading my 2011 large seed company catalog yesterday. I ordered from this company in the past and haven’t had a problem with them before.
Here’s the problem:
Look closely at the 2nd tomato variety. It is called “Burpee’s Supersteak Hybrid.” But wait–I thought this was an heirloom tomato collection? My first impression of this listing: [laughing] “Hey babe, they’re including a hybrid in this heirloom collection!” Eyebrows go up all around. A closer reading of the collection is that it is an heirloom taste collection. So they admit that they’re including a hybrid, but swear that it tastes just like an heirloom. Still, it’s misleading.
I continue reading the catalog (hey, I’m a gardener, to me this is a magazine). Then I come to this listing:
My first impression is that this company made a mistake in their catalog. They accidentally identified this hybrid variety as an heirloom. It’s possible that this variety is actually an heirloom, but I only know of one heirloom that retained the name “hybrid” and that’s the squash “Essex Hybrid.” It means it was a hybrid at one point but has since been grown out and stabilized to be true to type and open pollinated. But the key word in the listing above is “our.” Possessing a variety indicates ownership. You can’t own a variety technically, unless it’s a proprietary hybrid.
These two pieces of evidence could be dismissed as mistakes or harmless mislabeling. Until the third piece of evidence was discovered:
Okay, the secret’s out. This is the Burpee catalog. This hybrid tomato variety is probably the most famous and most well known and possibly the most recognized variety of tomato out there. But it’s still a hybrid. So why is it labelled an heirloom?
Let’s go back to basics and define what an heirloom is. Unfortunately, there is a matter of debate among gardeners about the particulars. But it is generally agreed upon that an heirloom seed will:
- be open pollinated. This means that seed saved from the vegetable/fruit will make fruit exactly resembling the parent. Assuming it is not cross pollinated.
- be at least 50 years old. This point is debated because some newer open-pollinated varieties have become fast favorites but aren’t yet 50. An example is Green Zebra, which wasn’t widely distributed until the 1980s, even though it existed back to the early 60s as a stable variety.
- Should have a history attached. This means that a variety called Aunt Gertie’s Gold should have some relation to a woman named Gertie (and it would help if she was an Aunt) who grew the variety in the family for a bunch of years, etc. This part of the definition is optional, but a great inclusion.
So an heirloom is above all an open-pollinated variety. It may or may not be at least 50 years old and/or have a known history.
So what is the big deal about calling “Big Boy” tomato a heirloom? Does it meet the definition:
- is it 50+ years old? Hmmm, the catalog says it is from 1949. That’s 61 years, so yes.
- does it have a history? Well it was probably developed by Burpee to be sold (and patented) by Burpee. Probably developed with certain traits in mind, mainly for size and color. Possibly production and disease resistance. But we may never know for sure. The parents of this hybrid remain proprietary.
- is it open pollinated? No.
I could have skipped the first two questions. A hybrid will never (ever) be an heirloom even if it meets 2 out of the 3 requirements unless it is open pollinated. So a hybrid can’t be anything other than a hybrid. Period, end of story.
So why does this matter so much? Words have meaning. If this company says, well this hybrid is over 50 years old, (even though they have to physically make the seed with the two secret parents each year), so why can’t we call it an heirloom? It is owned by Burpee and will always be owned by Burpee, so it is an heirloom we’ll pass on to the next Burpee employees on a need-to-know basis. In this sentence, “it” refers not to the tomato, but the genetic recipe for the tomato plant.
Stretching the definition of words to suit your own views is dangerous. It is misleading. Growers can look at this catalog and get excited because they have now been given the license by Burpee to call a hybrid an “heirloom.” They can take this seed and grow it out. Then take the fruit to their farmer’s market and tell all their patrons that they are buying “heirloom” tomatoes. It’s a lie. If by chance a patron decided this was the best tomato ever and saved the seed, they’d grow wild card plants that don’t look anything like the “Big Boy” tomato they’d eaten. They could then get fed up with “heirlooms” that don’t grow true and feel negative to them forevermore.
That is a long-shot. But it’s in the catalog not once but 3 times. If we start to erode even this simple distinction, what’s the gain and what’s the loss? Burpee may gain a few more seed packet sales. Gardeners will lose space for genuine heirlooms in their gardens. And farmer market gardeners can gain a fake label for their fruits and possibly make more sales.
Burpee must have caught on that heirloom seeds are getting to be a real trend (read market share) in gardening today. They want to get in more on this heirloom market so they just call their hybrids “heirlooms” and hope gardeners won’t notice long enough to shell out their money. What other reason is there?
Of course, they could try selling more actual heirloom varieties. But there is one glaring exception: the Burpee company developed the first yellow zucchini. It was an open pollinated variety from the start and has a great history attached to it. It is probably over 50 years old by now so it is an heirloom variety in every sense of the definition. But it is not being sold by Burpee for 2011. It’s a mind bender. . .
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