Hi Peter
They're called HYVs, High Yielding Varieties, but other people who
weren't trying to sell the idea soon started calling them HRVs,
high-response varieties, since they were bred for their response to
the chemical fertiliser and pesticide package they came with.
Various studies found that the traditional varieties, the local
heritage crops, non-hybrids, could perform just as well as the HYVs
in an organic system using lots of good compost, without any of the
chemical support. Added advantages were that the farmers could go on
saving their own seeds: the hybrids don't breed true, farmers had to
keep buying seeds for the next crop from the seed and chemicals
corporations. Also it preserved crop biodiversity, which the hybrids
eroded, often replacing hundreds of traditional local varieties with
a single monocrop.
Weirdly, the HYVs depended on the traditional varieties they were
destroying to provide germplasm for new hybrid varieties, because the
HYVs only lasted a few years before the pests got them anyway,
chemicals or not, and had to be replaced.
The process represents a paradox in social and economic development
in that the product of technology [the new seeds] displaces the
resource upon which the technology is based. -- US National Academy
of Sciences
This genetic erosion could be the reason you're puzzled about where
to get A strain and B strain - vanished, in a bowl of porridge:
http://journeytoforever.org/keith_riceseed.html
The traditional varieties are usually much tougher and more resistant
than the HYVs, and the HYVs are often poor in nutritional quality -
you get twice as much of half as little, or less. Traditional
varieties provide much better food security than HYVs. The Green
Revolution yield increases didn't last that long either. You probably
don't need them, home-made or not.
We're going to need all the crop varieties we can find. Finding
sources of threatened or vanishing local varieties and restoring them
is noble work.
Best
Keith
Hi All ;
We all hear about the green revolution and hybrid vigor which
increases yeilds. Does anyone know how to make hybrid corn seeds?
Is anyone doing this?
In other words, I have read how to make hybrid seeds by planting
alternating rows of corn with the two different strains, lets call
them A strain and B strain. Then you can control the pollination by
cutting off tassles etc. Then you need seperate areas to grow the
pure A strain and pure B strain seperately for planting the next
seed crop.
So far so good. Now my question is this : Where do you get the A
strain and B strain? Can any strain work? Is anyone doing this?
If not, any reason why not? Any recommendations for strains to try?
Seems to me this would give you hybrid vigor and also independence.
Best Regards,
Peter G.
Thailand
___
Biofuel mailing list
Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages):
http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
