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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Dehybridizing
  • Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:38:54 EST


> >Please decipher hickory stump meaning here.


As in "tough as an old hickory stump", a kenning that has a lot of meaning if
you have ever tried to eradicate one without the assistance of Magnolia.

>
> >That is clearly true for commercial crops, perhaps most notably corn,
> but it seems to me that seed produced for and sold to gardeners is
> designed for home growers of small plots. The value of hybrid veggies
> for me is not only their reliable taste and size qualities but their
> resistance to disease. Think fusarium wilt in tomatoes.

Yes, and fusarium wilt resistance is a good example. Several hybrids are
much more resistant to it than most OP's. One way of managing the disease is
to
plant a very resistant variety. Another is to plant 20 different varieties
even if that means planting only one of each variety and/or stagering the
crop
all season with different varieties. Most will escape fusarium with is
highly
opportunistic and preys most dramatically on a monocrop of tomatoes.

But as far as the 'typical' gardener to whom some of the hybrid seeds are
targeted, how many don't sock on the MiracleGro and Sevin dust? The enhanced
qualities of those crops are often in the context of inert salts as
fertilizers
and chemical pest control. If we eschew those practicies, do we not expose
the
weak side of the plant (the trade off for the good qualities) to all sorts of
vicisitudes?

As an example, I've only found one variety of red OP red cabbage readily
available, Mamoth Red Rock (I'd be grateful for any other types and sources).

I've grown six hybrid varieties and they were all pretty good, did OK. But
the
OP always does better. I've got two big heads of it still in the fidge and
doing fine. On mediocre ground the MRR does passably but nothing to write
home
about. But in the beds where there is several years of dedicated compost, as
when I first bring the in situ compost heaps back into production, the MRR
makes an impressively large dense head (much like the gardener's). The
hybirds
just do OK as if they don't know what to do with all that humus.

Bloomsdale spinach (AKA Boltsdale) makes an OK stand on poor ground and bolts
if you look at it askance. The hybrid Tyee makes a better stand on poor
ground and resists bolting admirably. But if the Tyee is planted on really
well
worked organic ground, it does no better. The Boltsdale will make a
magnificient crown 15" across as if it is much better suited to the organic
ground.
Alas, unless one is camping out beside it and cuts the crown right then, it
bolts
about 20 seconds later.

The hybrid peppers (all those bells in 28 different colors) do OK. Don't
need all that many of them so I'm OK with that. But right beside it some OP
pepper (such as Ancho) will make a tree big enough for George of Jungle and
yield
a cartload of peppers.

It seems to me to be a consistent observation. None the less, I do use some
hybrid seeds such as the rainbow of peppers and the spinach.


James




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