In my grandfather’s time, saving seed for next year’s crop was a necessity.  Nowadays, it may be against the law.  How in the world did agriculture change so much and so fast?  I have been reading a good book that explains what happened.

It started with hybrids in the 1920s.  The first hybrid seeds were two varieties of corn, and their yields far exceeded those of the old standbys like Yellow Dent.  However, you could not save seed from a hybrid because its genes were a mixture of ancestral strains.  That meant it would not “breed true.”

In the midst of the Depression farmers began to abandon the old standard varieties and plant nothing but the new hybrids.  One reason was they were not subject to diseases like bacterial wilt that had caused crop failure.

By the time my generation was growing up, after WWII, hardly any farmers were planting heirloom varieties of corn, cotton, and other cash crops.  Even home gardens were filled with hybrid tomatoes, sweet corn, and beans.  No one cared that a huge number of heirloom varieties became extinct.

Seed and chemical companies joined forces (call them Big Ag) to find new ways to speed up hybridizing in order to develop new varieties of corn and cotton that matured faster.  Of course farmers needed to use large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and also chemical sprays to control weeds and bugs.

The real game-changer came in the 1980s and 90s, as it became possible to use recombinant DNA in the lab to produce genetically modified (GM) corn and other seeds.  The best part was that this Bt corn (as it became known) was not bothered if you sprayed the plants with a strong weedkiller.

Cotton was modified to produce a bacteria that would kill insects like bollworms.  No need to spray it at all.

These Bt varieties would breed true, meaning you could save seed for next year’s crop.  That’s when Big Ag decided they needed legal protection against farmers saving seed, even if you weren’t planting their brand.

Their reasoning was that your corn might have been pollinated by someone else’s who had planted theirs. I remember being told that my grandfather once gave cottonseed to a neighbor whose barn had burned.  What would he think about being sued for saving seed?

Organizations like Seed Savers Exchange are promoting the preservation of biodiversity by encouraging folks to save and plant heirloom varieties of all kinds of crops.  I raise a few tomatoes every year and seek out heirlooms like Arkansas Traveler rather than hybrids.  What do you remember about the tradition of saving seed?

Jerry Lincecum is a retired English professor who now teaches classes for older adults who want to write their life stories.  He welcomes your reminiscences on any subject: jlincecum@me.com