I just jumped on the whole genre. Looking around the site, atleast they have "bulk" grains. The prices are crazy high. Their grain and drybean packs look generic. They list no varieties, just a few ounces of seed. I could literally go to my local grocer and make up the same packs minus corn in seed form. Notice they do not say the seed is organic, the name of the company includes the word, they are selling "non hybrid"... All of these can be bought at the store, and are not hybrids. Only their corn seed would they have to have a different source then many grocery stores. (in the grain a drybean section) They gave reference to specializing your order based on where you live, but do not even list varieties for most of their grains, and just have generic legumes? These are the most important types of seed for a survival situation. This is where you are likely to get the most calories, and have the greatest margin of error in fact.
Are their barley, wheat, and rye winter or spring types? do they even know? generally soft wheat is spring, and hard red wheat is likely a winter habit. Barley and rye who knows, they dont say.
plus nonsense like this...
World Food Supply
Put simply, the future of the world's food supply rests in non-hybrid seeds. The push toward hybridization and GM foods is becoming irreversible. Hybrid food sources are patented and "owned" by the patent-holders. It is, in fact, a form of patent-infringement to attempt to collect and plant seeds from many hybrid varieties.
You can collect seeds from any hybrids you want. In fact if you know a hybrid does good locally its a nice way to start a breeding project as you dont need to do the initial groundwork, and can just select the best plants over time as you stabilize the variety. This IS true of GMs, but who cares the GM crops made so far are of little use to the home gardener. Even patented tree varieties, I can freely propagate and even sell them if I pay 50-75cents to the patent holder. Garden seeds, you can do whatever you want with your saved seeds, hybrids or not.
Nutritional Integrity
Many vegetables today lack nutrition from over-hybridization. Recent tests are showing that many of the vegetables, grains and other produce you buy, INCLUDING ORGANIC PRODUCE, are nutrient-deficient. If you want to truly be in charge of your nutritional intake, you must home garden. If you want the higher nutrition of original varieties you must use non-hybrids.
oh my. Yes many veggies are loosing their nutritional levels, this has ZERO to do with hybrids, or organics etc. This has to do with soil, and micro nutrients. We expect ALOT from our modern soils, and we whether organic or "conventionally" replace key things but often ignore the micro nutrients. This has been a growing issue for literally decades, and isnt universally true, some foods we eat still come from soils with good levels of them. Another factor often over looked is many things are picked not at their optimum, but at the best point for shipment, which with some things can lower the nutrition level.
All of this reads as sensationalism to me. The real reason you want open pollinated "non hybrid" seeds, is so they breed true to type. If you want to preserve older genetics as they mention, great but you wont do it buying generic seed from these guys. Hybrids arent the boogey man some think though. You will still produce food, and in time youll likely have something better acclimated to your exact conditions anyway. But most people like to know what they will get, so prefer non hybrids.
It is easier every season to buy bulk grains and legumes. More and more small level growers are getting into it. Before the last few years, and even now it just isnt common for gardeners to grow grains and legumes, which in a survival situation is where youll hope to get most of your calories. I breed plants so Im rather biased in how Id answer this question... if you want it done right then find locally proven varieties, or if your in a place without much local ag, varieties proven with similar climates. Rounding out your grains and legumes with veggies and greens, and fruits is needed of course but the learning curve on them is larger and not as many calories. Remember your rosehips and fresh pine needles for vitamin C and most anyone with space and a basic understanding of gardening should be able to get a crop from grains and legumes that do well under local climate. try to start a few dozen types of crops all in one season the first time you ever grew is a recipe for failure. Ask any gardener. In fact you might even keep those seeds held back even in a survival situation or mostly held back and playing with a few plants. Get your legs under you with the high calorie stuff. potatoes are an amazingly easy crop for most of the nation, high production to, youll want TPS seed,(true potato seed- most grow potato from tuber which you cant store long term) hard to source but you can find it, they last 25-30 years easily without any special care. You cant really save seeds but if you garden the jerusalem artichokes are insanely easy, lots of easy calories. Mine grow here on prepared sites without any further help beyond having gotten them going in a proper site.
Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 9:56 am