The Importance of Seed, Frank Morton
Frank Morton has been breeding and selecting seed for more than 25 years. In this video, he talks about the importance of seed and how the interaction between seed and human changed both.
Search Results for: Frank Morton
Frank Morton explains how GMOs get that way
Ever wonder exactly how Monsanto gets those genes into GMOs? Frank Morton explains it in layman’s terms. For decades, Morton has been a “salad guy,” raising a wide variety of greens for seed and selling seed to gardeners and farmers.
The Illusion of Diversity – Seed Patents
Around 100 years ago there were hundreds of varieties of vegetable and fruit seed available to the farmer and home gardener. By 1983 those varieties had been reduced by more than a factor of 10. Seed breeders like Frank Morton who focus on “open-pollinated” varieties specialize in varieties that breed true, unlike the many hybrid varieties offered by giant seed companies – and protected by a web of intellectual property rights methods.
Seed is Life. Soil is Life. Water is Life.
The problem is this: seeds need a place to grow; not just a place to grow but also a place that matches the seed. Not a new place, but the pre-existing ecosystem where the seed was produced, or something that closely mimics the original ecology. The challenge then is to rediscover and restore as much of the local resiliency expressed in the natural ecosystems we have left and to replant the seed accordingly. The quality of the soil and water is as important as the seed; that is to say, without it (like we humans), the seed will die.
How I Became a Plant Breeder
(Copyright by and reproduced with permission from Frank Morton, Wild Garden Seed.) In 1983, my third spring as a market gardener, I was looking over …
The Future of Farming and Food, A Whole Foods Speaker Series Event
Getting good food from the field to the fork is not a solitary occupation, it takes a team: farmers, food processors, researchers, and retailers. And discussions like the Seeds of Innovation: The Future of Farming and Food should take place more often and in more communities. It’s a must for a good food world.
What is the USDA’s Plan For ‘Agricultural Coexistence?’
Yes, US farmers do indeed apply a wide variety of farming methods, however the idea that they can “coexist through cooperation” is a stretch. “Coexistence” puts an undue burden on organic farmers trying to protect the integrity of their crops.
Biology Defies the Nature of Patents
What began in 1930 as a restrained attempt to reward horticultural inventors like Luther Burbank (the self-educated, self-styled, plant genius of his day), has become a kind of free-for-none piñata hunt entrancing corporations and university IP offices for a decade. Everyone with an IP portfolio is blindly swinging over their heads, hoping they will get their reward when the prizes come raining down.