Why grow using organic/bio-dynamic seeds?
To answer this question, the starting point for us is discussing the life cycle of plants and how they achieve that full cycle.
Most seed is the result of a plant reaching full maturity. Many of the herbs and vegetables and flowers we eat and enjoy are harvested at their juvenile or baby stage. Quickest vegetables such as radish take about 25 days from seed to harvest but when allowed to achieve full maturity and ripen seed, the radish may be in the ground for 7-8 months.
For the seed grower, this equates to needing to nurture a plant through a longer period of time and many weed cycles, pest pressures and disease opportunities.
Conventionally grown seed crops are the most heavily sprayed of our agricultural crops. As the plant is in the ground for longer, it is usually preceded with a heavy dose of water-soluble fertilisers. Pre-emergent herbicides, to keep the weeds at bay, may be followed by selective herbicides to reduce weed pressure. This may continue with fungal and pesticide treatments, offered in response to a disease or to create an environment where the disease can not exist. At harvest, the seed to be sown contains a higher pesticide, herbicide and fungicide load than what is permitted in food for consumption.
Whilst this process has a detrimental impact on the earth – killing living soils, polluting waterways and compromising ecosystems - it also fundamentally impacts on the genetic information stored in the seed produced. The genetic information is the critical issue for us as organic/bio-dynamic growers.
Conventional seed is bred to rely on synthetic inputs.
Chemicals spray away environmental diversity – differences in the soil fertility as well as pest and disease threats, so it is no surprise that over time, plants grown under these practices begin to rely on the chemicals. They have not had the opportunity to network with soil microbes and fungal chains to draw nutrients and strengthen their immune systems. They have not been able to fully photosynthesize, converting sunlight into plant proteins and liquid carbon.
“In bio-dynamics we are builders of health – not healers of sickness.” – Alex Podolinsky
Bio-dynamic seed crops are grown in living soil within a diverse thriving ecosystem.
From the time the seed sends out its first roots, it is encouraged to access minerals and nutrients using feeder roots and to form complex symbiotic relationships. It is nurtured throughout its life by focusing on the health of the whole ecosystem to maintain the balance within the individual plant. By using photosynthesis to accesses nutrients and build cells, the full nature of the plant’s expression has been guided by sunlight.
Pest and disease pressures are balanced through maintaining the diverse ecosystem within which plants are grown. Healthy plants have a more robust ability to ward off these pressures. If the system needs support, only those inputs certified to the National Standard for Organic and Bio-Dynamic produce are permitted. These inputs have been rigorously tested to uphold the pillars of organic growing- The Principles of Health, Ecology, Fairness, and care.
Research in the fields of epigenetics (the study of how behaviours and environment can cause changes that affect the way genes work) is proving that plants pass along information to their offspring to help them better respond to the growing conditions experienced by the parent.
Traits such as thriving and networking in minimal input systems, fighting insect attacks, protecting against soil pathogens, experiencing high intensity light and intense heat, these are held in the amazing hard bodied memory of a seed.
The strongest plants carry their genes forward into the next generation of seed.
So to answer the question of ‘Why grow using bio-dynamic/organic seed?’, we believe, from our growing experience, that bio-dynamically/ organically grown seed is more resilient – it does a better job of fending off pests and diseases and providing great yields without as much input. They have been generationally bred to do that.
Seeds continue the existence of genetic material not only in design (think of the seeds that helicopter, seeds that stick in fur, seeds that have a hard coating to withstand the stomach of birds and small mammals, using them for transportation, etc), but also in the minute changes within its epigenetic chains that reveal adaptations to climate, soil, drought, disease and insect pressure. The seed embodies the ultimate success of the adapted plant – being its final creation – and is encoded with the recipe for survival. That this small hard bodied dream can contain so much information is true food sovereignty.
It’s value though is in being planted.
