Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>]

http://www.abundantlifeseed.org/

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 PORT TOWNSEND — When the historic Aldrich's Market burned to the
ground this week, a collection of seeds taken from rare and heirloom
plants went with it.

Seeds representing 2,000 varieties of plants were stored in the
offices of Abundant Life Seed Foundation and the affiliated World Seed
Fund in the upstairs of the century-old building.

Abundant Life, a Port Townsend-based nonprofit, is one of only about a
dozen organizations nationwide that specialize in heirloom-variety seeds.

Abundant Life had $102,00 worth of retail seeds and an invaluable
amount of germplasm, which is a part of reproductive cells that
contains chromosomes and is used to preserve genetic information about
the plant, said Matthew Dillon, executive director of the foundation.

"Some seeds are being grown at the farm, so we don't know what
percentage we'll be able to rebuild," Dillon said. "It's not a 100
percent loss as we were originally thinking."

Patti Kretzmeier, of the Gardens at Four Corners Nursery in Port
Townsend, called the loss "devastating."

Heirloom seeds are nonhybrids that have not been genetically modified.
They're usually handed down through generations and valued because
they may be the only known example of a plant's particular strain.

Plant growers can use older varieties to breed resistance back into crops.

Through the World Seed Fund, the group ships seeds to community
gardening projects from prisons to refugee camps worldwide. The group
also grows about 200 varieties at a farm in Port Townsend and works
with a seed-growers network, including many organic farmers around
Port Townsend.


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