Landrace Gardening: Don’t Worry About Plant Purity

Reader Contribution by Joseph Lofthouse
1 / 2
2 / 2

This week I’m discussing three inter-related topics. Landrace gardeners do not worry much about plant purity because we believe that mixing varieties can promote hybrid vigor and eliminate inbreeding depression. We consider cross pollination to be desirable because it can create more vigorous plants. It may be prudent to grow different populations of the same species as distinct landraces if there are big differences in how they are used.

Heirlooms typically grow poorly in my garden. I believe this is because heirloom seed is often highly inbred. The term “inbreeding depression” describes a general lack of vigor which arises when a cultivar pollinates itself over and over again. Heirlooms typically have little genetic diversity because they have been inbred for up to 50 or 100 generations.

The large seed companies also offer highly inbred seed, but they partially solve the inbreeding depression problem by making hybrids. Then they market the seed as having “hybrid vigor”, which is characterized by the plants growing more robustly than the inbred parents.

The term “open pollinated” is another synonym for highly inbred, because a variety can only “breed true” if it has been significantly inbred. The intense inbreeding makes it possible to offer nearly identical seed year after year.

Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368