A Guide to Preserving
Valuable Vegetable Varieties
introducing the
Five Levels of Seed Saving:
by Terry J. Klokeid
Amblewood Organic Farm
Fulford Harbour BC
Contents
A. Introduction
The learning process
Objectives
Why save seed?
Why breed plants?
B Plant Types and definitions
C. The five basic levels of seed saving, summarized
. Level 1 Beginning seed saving:, Annual Inbreeders
. Level 2 The next stage: Annual Outbreeders
. Level 3 Biennials the Overwintering plants:
. Level 4 Saving seed tubers:
. Level 5 Advanced seed saving:.Selection and Breeding
Common Name Index
Botanical name index
Sources and references cited
Recommended reading
A Introduction
1. The learning Process
Seed saving can seem a bewildering activity.
How is saving seeds for various vegetables similar and
how does seed saving differ between various
vegetables?
Learning is always a process, and I would like to propose
that learning how to save seeds can be broken down into
about five basic stages.
The first 3 levels of seed saving involve progressively
greater complexity in planning, spacing, record-keeping,
active involvement in the pollination process, and other
activities.
Level 4 of 'seed saving' does not actually involve seeds
as such, but rather using cloning techniques, that is,
saving and replanting tubers - potatoes are a familiar
example.
Level 5, in this framework, involves larger-scale, longterm
selection and breeding for improvement of
vegetable varieties. Level 5 is the most complex level in
every res ect.
ndividual variation in tackling
evels 1 through 5
ou can bring your interests and learning style to seed
aving, and proceed at your pace and according to your
ircumstances - - you do not have to start with Level 1,
or example, you might jump to level 2 vegetables right
ffthe bat.
Some people will only save seeds of Level 1, never
othering with the more complex types, and others will
nly save potatoes, which is level 4 in this framework.
ile every seed saver will carry out a certain degree of
election, most seed savers do not get seriously involved
ith Level 5, long-term plant improvement through
election and breeding. It is my goal to encourage you to
uild your knowledge and skills to the point where you
an maintain the quality of a vegetable and even
im rove its ada tation to our owin conditions.
2. Objectives of this manual
My goal in writing this manual is to encourage many of
you who are committed to seed saving to move to Level
5. This manual is not intended as a substitute for the
existing seed saving and plant breeding books - it is
more of a guide to how to use that literature, as you
build your seed saving skills.
Regardless of how your seed saving preferences, please
keep in the recommendations for numbers of plants and
cross-pollination precautions.
The recommendation for minimum numbers and for
separation vary somewhat depending on your goals and
the scale of your operation.
3. Why save seed and breed
plants?
The major reason for saving your own vegetable seed is
so that you can maintain varieties that are best suited to
your own specific growing conditions, that is, locally
adapted plants.
The seed that you buy mayor may not already have this
suitability. A vegetable variety that suits your conditions
and your tastes may be available now, but not next year.
It may also be the case that if you go back to the same
company another year, you will not necessarily get seed
from the same grower. It may have the same name but
be completely different, depending on the care each
grower takes of the variety.
When you buy seed from a large seed company, it is
likely that the seed is imported, and may have been
grown under conditions that are very different from
yours. There is very little vegetable seed grown in
Canada and even less in BC.
Regional trials are expensive and the BC government
has not funded them for many many years.
So once you have determined that a particular variety of
vegetable does well for you, it only makes sense to try
and save seed for it --yourself.
B Plant Types and
definitions
If you are aware ofjust two broad plant types, then you
can avoid some of the most common pitfalls for
beginning seed savers. Other distinctions are important,
but can be taken into account after you have leaned
about the two important ones.
Firstly we distinguish between annual and biennial
vegetables, (and perennial) and between, inbreeder
versus outbreeder. These are explained below:
Annual
Examples of annual vegetables: Peas, beans, tomatoes.
An annual species completes its life cycle, from the
planting of the seed to the making of the next generation
of seed, in one year. Most often the annual produces
seed at or just after the time we would harvest it for
food. Once the right type of.pollen lands on the stigma
(which is the exposed part of the pistil), it travels along
the style, and ends up in the ovary, where the pollen and
the ovule combine their DNA and become a seed. So the
life cycle of an annual lasts just one year, and hence the
name.
With peas or tomatoes or beans, the seeds are there
when we harvest our food. The pea is a seed, the bean is
a seed, and the seeds of a tomato plant are usually quite
visible within the ripe tomato fruit. For seed, we would
leave the edible pea, bean, or tomato fruit on the plant
just past the time of food-harvest, to let the seed mature
just a bit more on the plant.
Biennial
Example of a biennial: carrot.
A biennial plant takes two years to complete the life
cycle from its start as a seed to its own seed production.
A biennial plant must somehow survive the winter and
produce its seed during the second growing season, often
in the spring time.
Often we harvest the plant for food in its first season and
never see the second, seed-producing season.
When a biennial overwinters and begins to form flowers
the second year, the plant often changes shape. The
green top of a carrot is not very prominent in the
vegetable garden, but a carrot plant that has
overwintered will suddenly grow a very tall top with
masses of tiny flowers on it which mature into large flat
seed heads.
Inbreeder
Example of an inbreeder: tomato
An individual plant of an inbreeding species selfpollinates
and does not exchange pollen with other
individual plants.
Such a plant releases pollen from the tip of its own
stamen, the anther, and the pollen lands right away on
the pistil. In many plants this pollination process
happens before the flower even opens - indeed the tiny
flowers may not even open at all.
Outbreeder
Example of an outbreeder: com
An individual plant of an outbreeding species can easily
be fertilized by pollen from other plants and indeed such
species require that a flower on a given plant undergoes
pollination from other plants.
Com plants that do not receive pollen from other plants
will produce offspring that look very poor.
Such plants often have strategies to ensure that their
pollen spreads far and wide - the tassels on the top of
com plants puts the pollen up high where it can be swept
away by breezes, and pollinate a com patch at the other
end of the valley.
2
First stage seed saving
Level 1 Annual Inbreeders
Annual inbreeder species are the ones to start seed
saving activities with- they produce seed the first year
and the offspring will be just like the parent plant.
There are at least four reasons why saving seed from
annual inbreeders is relatively easy:
1. The seed is ready the same year.
With many annuals, the seed is the same as the part
we eat - beans, peas, etc. With a few other annuals,
the seed appears in a cavity on the fruit (peppers,
tomato)
2. Small-scale seed saving is quite feasible
with inbreeders.
You could in theory save seed from just one plant of
an inbreeding species for future use.
But there is still some genetic variability that should
be preserved, so I would recommend saving seed
from at least ten or a dozen plants of an inbreeding
variety: with tomatoes, for example, I would suggest
saving seed from several plants with desirable traits
such as the earliest plant to flower, from the one with
the biggest tomatoes, from the one that produces the
first ripe tomatoes, from the one that appears overall
to be the healthiest plant regardless oftomato
production, and so on.
Such differences in a given garden in a given year
could well be due to environmental factors, but by
retaining seed from several plants you are minimizing
the inadvertent loss of any desirable genetic trait.
3. Pollen contamination - undesirable
cross-pollination -within your own garden i
s relatively easy to prevent for most i
nbreeders (though not for all ofthem).
Since Level I plants pollinate themselves, they
generally lack mechanisms for spreading pollen far
and wide. Lettuce plants of different varieties can be
grown quite close together; two different tomato
varieties can be grown within a meter or two of each
other.
Garbanzos, which are a bit more susceptible to
crossing, thanks to visiting honeybees, might warrant
a greater separation, or perhaps it is best to just grow
one variety in any given year if you wish to save the
seed. It is the chance ofpollen being spread by
visiting insects, especially, which can produce pollen
contamination.
4. Pollen contamination from the
neighbour's garden is unlikely.
5. Plant Hardiness Zones do not matter for
Annuals
Agriculture Canada has published a map showing
Plant Hardiness Zones for the entire country. A
similar system, developed in the USA, covers both
our country and the southern neighbours.
These systems attempt to show where perennials will
survive the winter, and where they won't. The Zone
numbers are widely used by nurseries and other plant
and seed sources to show the hardiness oftheir
perennial offerings.
Since Annuals do not overwinter, the Agriculture
Canada and USA Zones don't matter for Annuals at
all. What matters is the length and warmth ofthe
summer, not the extremes of winter cold. Northern
BC and the Prairies may have extreme winter lows
compared to Coastal BC, but may actually enjoy
hotter summers than some areas that lie between the
cold waters ofthe Pacific and the coastal mountains.
Some Levell plants - annual inbreeders among the
vegetables are in the following table. (Mostly, the
species within a genus will behave the same. So the
tables below are organized by Genus names, which
have a Latinate form and are always capitalized.)
Levell. Annual Inbreeders
Genus Examples
Capsicum pepper
Cker gMbanzo
Glycine soybean
Hordeum barley
Lactuca lettuce
Pisum pea
Portulaca purslane,
Portulaca, cont'd miners lettuce
Solanum tomato,
Solanum cont'd eggplant
Tetrogonia New Zealand spinach
Triticum wheat
Vicia broad bean
and this species:
Phaseolus vulgaris --bush bean, pole bean
With inbreeding species, each plant generally uses its
own pollen to pollinate its seed, while with
outbreeding species, the pollen ofone plant must
travel to another flower to pollinate the seed. But it
must be kept in mind that the difference is really one
of degree. Virtually any inbreeder can be pollinated
by another plant, and the propensity varies - two
pepper plants within 5 feet might be cross-pollinated
thanks to visiting insects, while if you grow an acre of
lettuce with the plants so close that they touch each
other, crossing might happen once in a thousand
plants. And some varieties might just be exceptional certain
tomato varieties, for example, tend to crosspollinate
because of their flower structure (the socalled
potato-leaf varieties tend to be in this
category). Cicer (garbanzo) are also susceptible to
easy crossing. Sometimes inbreeders are crosspollinated
by insects that chew into a flower at just
the right time to get covered in pollen, and they then
take this off to a flower on another plant, which they
promptly chew into. This is a matter of chance -they
might now chew into just the right flowers at the right
time in the right sequence in order to cross-pollinate
two varieties.
You could stay with saving seed for Level I, the
annual inbreeders, and never bother with outbreeders.
In that case, it is worth being aware that Level I
vegetables can be divided more or less into two
groups, the cool-weather and warm weather
vegetables.
Your climate may suit cool-weather vegetables much
more than warm-weather ones, especially if you are
trying to collect the seed.
Warm weather vegetables originate in tropical and
sub-tropical regions, and require warmth to
germinate, and summer sun and heat to grow and
mature. If your growing conditions are less than ideal
for warm-weather plants, you may get the vegetables,
but not the seed.--without extra effort.
Seedless varieties
Some vegetable varieties have been bred to produce
fruit without setting seed. If you rely on so-called
parthenocarpic tomato varieties, then you may find
few seeds, if any, in your harvest. If you wish to save
more seed for tomatoes, you could consider coldtolerant
tomato varieties that produce more seed.
The next stage:
Level 2 Annual
Outbreeders
There are at least two consequences of dealing with
an outbreeder species:
1. More plants are required to maintain viability.
Whereas a dozen or a hundred suffice for inbreeders,
hundreds or thousands are necessary to maintain
viability in outbreeders. So saving seed from
outbreeders is a different scale operation than saving
from the inbreeders.
2. Unwanted cross-pollination is a danger.
An outbreeder is not at all fussy about the pollen that
it accepts to fertilize its seeds: as long as they are
from other plants of the same species or even related
species. Thus maintaining a variety is a balancing act
between having some diversity among plants to retain
vigour, and yet not having so much diversity that the
offspring in the next or later generation are useless
plants.
With an outbreeder, you must plan your own garden
carefully, to avoid pollen contamination, and you may
have to be aware of crops on neighbouring properties
that could cross-pollinate your plants.
Level 2. Annual Outbreeders
Genus Examples
Abelmoschus okra
Atriplex orach(e), pigweed
Chenopodium lambs quarters,
Chenopodium, cont'd Good-King-Henry,
Chenopodium, cont'd qumoa
Citrullus watermelon, citron
Coriandrum coriander/cilantro
Cucumis cucumber, melon
Cucurbita pumpkin, squash,
Cucurbita, cont'd zucchini, gourd
Helianthus sunflower
Perilla shiso
Phaseolus coccineus runner bean
Raphanus radish,
Raphanus, cont'd daikon, rattail radish
Spinacia spinach
Zea com, popcorn, flint com
Unclear
Amaranthus outbreeder? inbreeder but
susceptible?
Dan Jason has a novel way of dealing with Phaseolus
coccineus, the Runner Beans, which are Level 2
plants. Instead of keeping varieties separate, he has
allowed them to cross freely. He has related,
" ...Because runner bean flowers are worked so
heavily by bees and hummingbirds, I've given up
trying to isolate my many varieties. The result is a
mixture I call Runner Rogues. Some of the seed
colours are quite wacky though all the seeds are of the
same size and equally delicious." (Living Lightly on
the Land, page 25.)
How many plants?
Perhaps a dozen or so plants seem to suffice to
maintain the Runner bean Phaseolus coccineus. At
the other extreme is com. Probably because it has
been so highly inbred over the years, it is very
susceptible to inbreeding depression. So aiming to
save seed from some hundreds ofplants is necessary
to maintain com. It would be prudent to start with
about a thousand plants, as some will be lost along
the way, and your aim is to harvest seed from at least
a few hundred healthy plants.
Wikipedia definition follows:
Inbreeding depression is reduced fitness in a given
population as a result of breeding of related
individuals. Breeding between closely related
individuals, called inbreeding, results in more
recessive deleterious traits manifesting themselves.
Example of an annual outbreeder
Cucurbita
Pumpkin, squash, zucchini, and gourds are
outbreeders, being pollinated by insects.
All belong to the genus Cucurbita, but cross only
within their own species. So you can grow several
Cucurbita varieties at the same time for seed, as long
as they belong to different species.
The following table will help determine which
varieties can be grown simultaneously for seed.
Ifyou do grow two varieties ofthe same species and
they cross, then the pumpkins, squash, zucchini,
gourds, will grow just as you expect - but the seeds
from them will grow in unpredictable ways the next
year.
Species names used here are taken from Munro and
Small (1997). A more complete listing of Cucurbita
varieties with species identification, using the older
species naming, may be found in Ashworth (1991),
pages 114-118.
Note: (Cucurbita argyrosperma was formerly known
as Cucurbita mixta) C. Moschata pollen may be able
to pollinate Cargyrosperma seed - the evidence
remains unclear at this time.
Cucurbita - Annual Outbreeders
Pumpkins
Species Examples
C. argyrosperma (mixta)Japanese Pie, White Cushaw,
Sweet Potato'
c. maxima Atlantic Giant, Mammoth
P Prize,Big Moon, Lumina,
Rouge Vif d'Etampes
C. moschata Buckskin.
C.pepo common Halloween
p pumpkins - Howden,
JackO'Lantern, Small Sugar
hulless varieties (Triple
T Treat, Snack Jack)
Summer Squash (flat-shaped) and
Zucchini (elongated) and novelty types
Species Examples
C. pepo zucchini (all green and
Y y ellow types)
Scallopini types
Winter Squash
Species Examples
C. argyrosperma
C. maxima Buttercup (Sweet Mama
Honey Delight, Hubbard (Golden Hubbard, New England,
Blue Hubbard),Delicious (Golden Delicious)
C. moschata Butternut (Butternut
Supreme), Cheese, Golden Cushaw (other Cushaws are
C. Argyrospenna)
C.pepo Acorn (Table King, Queen
S Spaghetti Squash,
Gourd
Species Examples
C. argyrosperma
C. maxima Turk's Turban
C. moschata
C.pepo small striped and warted
gourds, NestEgg, Spoon
3. The Overwintering
plants
Level 3 Biennial
outbreeders
As we move to the next level of seed saving, we
encounter several more complexities:
1. It is necessary to overwinter Level 3 plants.
It will be necessary to dig up and bring in carrots etc.,
unless your climate is mild enough, and they can be
protected from the most severe weather spells. But
with the extremes we experience during this period of
climate change, we must anticipate both extremes of
freezing and winter warm spells. The danger of
extreme lows is that plants may be susceptible - many
roots tum to mush after freezing and thawing. If there
is a prolonged warm spell, then the ground may warm
up so much that the roots start growing, and then
when it cools again, they may die.
So overwintered vegetables may require mulching
and other protective covering. You may do this now
with a few favourite ornamental plants, but consider
the much greater challenge having to protect 500
cabbage plants through months of winter storms.
2. Outbreeders must be grown in large numbers
As with level 2 (annual outbreeders) , many plants for
a level 3 vegetable variety must be grown. This in
tum requires starting with even greater numbers of
plants compared with annual outbreeders, as some
will be lost during the winter. To maintain a biennial
outbreeder, it may be necessary to start with a
thousand plants in the first year. You will lose some to
the weather, some to animals, some to disease, and
some will just succumb.
3. Record keeping and field inspection
Reviewing the records is essential. When plants are
saved from one year to the next, you must review the
records in the second year, and then check your
gardens to ensure that you have not inadvertently
overwintered something that will cross with your
intended seed crop.
For example, if you overwinter some beets for seed,
say, and some chard flowers at the same time, you
must be aware that they will cross.
4. Botanical knowledge
As you move to Level 3, you will find that an
awareness ofthe botanical names for species becomes
much more important, since there are so many
distinct vegetables that are in fact the same species.
For example, beet and Swiss chard are the same
species, Beta vulgaris. Siberian Kale and Rutabaga
are the same species, Brassica napus, and will
pollinate each other, but they are a different species
from Broccoli, which is Brassica oleracea, and will
not cross-pollinate the latter.
Munro and Small provide a comprehensive guide to
identifying the Brassica and other Level 3 species.
Genus
Allium
Apium
Beta
Brassica
Brassica
Brassica
Brassica
Brassica
Cichorium
Daucus
Pastinaca
Petroselinium
Biennial outbreeders
Examples
leek, onion
celery, celeriac
beet, Swiss chard
bok choy, broccoli,
Brussels sprout, cabbage,
canola, cauliflower,
kale-collard, kohlrabi,
mustard, rutabaga, turnip
chicory, endive, escarole
carrot
parsmp
parsley
Example: the Brassica family
The Brassica genus includes several species, and
many of these species include many common
vegetables. Insects will cross-pollinate the varieties
within one species. The table below concentrates on
the most common Brassica apt to be encountered in
Canada. A much more thorough listing is in Munro
and Small (1997), pages 87-133.
Brassica - Biennial Outbreeders
Species Examples
B. alboglabra gai lohn
B. dubiosa pai-tsai
B.juncea
B. napus rutabaga, swede, canola
B. nigra black mustard
B. oleracea cabbage, broccoli,
B. oleracea, cont'd cauliflower, kohlrabi,
B. oleracea, cont'd savoy cabbage,
B. oleracea, cont'd kale-collards, kale,
B.
B. rapa (campestris) bok choy, mibuna,
mizuna, kyona, hakusai, turnip, siu choy,
Important!
Don't save seed from Level 3 plants in
their first year
Most biennials must overwinter before they will
produce seed, but some plants might appear to
produce seed the first year ('bolt to seed'), especially
ifthey are stressed - you could see this happen to
some ofyour beet or parsnip plants, for example.
Once they have bolted, their vegetative growth ceases
and the beets or parsnips from these plants will not be
edible. So as tempting as it is, saving seed from these
plants will probably produce plants that will bolt
before forming roots the next year.
The plants which you want to save seeds from will be
the ones that did not flower their first year but were
the sturdiest and tastiest --but you must not eat them.
They need to be cared for over the winter so that they
can complete their life cycle the following spring.
For this reason, it is important to be aware of which
plants are biennials.
There are very few biennial inbreeders - Tragopon
porifolius, salsify, and Arctium lappa, gobo burdock,
are about the only ones I am aware of amongst
vegetables.
Both of these have a tendency to cross-pollination,
however, are so are best treated as Level 3 vegetables.
Level 3. Biennial inbreeders
Genus Examples
Tragopon porifolius Salsify
Arctium lappa gobo, burdock
Asparagus - a Perennial outbreeder
Asparagus, along with hops and a few other species,
is relatively unique from the seed-saving point of
view. Whereas most plants discussed here have both
pollen-making and seed-making structures on the
same plant, asparagus have distinct pollen-making
(male) and seed-making (female) plants. Also,
asparagus is perennial- a plant will grow back again
year after year, after dying back to ground level for
the winter
Most asparagus owners will weed out the female
plants, because the best spears are from the male
plants.
But in order to save seed, you must have some of
each type growing close enough for the wind to crosspollinate
the plants.
Level 3. Perennial outbreeders
Genus Examples
Asparagus all asparagus
Humulus all hops
4. Vegetative
production
Level 4 tubers
But there is a special class of vegetable that has some
ofthe attributes you would expect from biennial
inbreeders - (1) persisting more than one year, and (2)
not cross-pollinating. These are the vegetables that
reproduce through vegetatively, for example potatoes
which are typically grown from tuber cuttings.
The tubers of such plants have the identical genetic
makeup of the parent plants - even ifsuch plants have
flowers, as potato plants sometimes do, any crosspollination
that may occur does not affect the tubers.
They are one-parent offspring. The challenges faced
with growing Level 4 vegetables for seed are
significant ones.
1. Susceptibility to disease demands many varieties
Clonal reproduction means that all plants from the
same parent share the same genetic makeup and are
equally susceptible to any disease or pest. The Irish
potato famine occurred because the potatoes grown
were so close genetically. The best insurance is to
grow many varieties.
Commercial seed potato production in Canada is
subject to the most stringent controls on any form of
seed operation.
2. Planting and record keeping
The many varieties must be kept separate in the
records and in the field, as though they were
outbreeders, to ensure that all varieties are
maintained, and if one succumbs to a disease, then all
tubers of that variety can be removed.
3. Land is tied up
For a crop like the sunroot (Jerusalem Artichoke)
where the harvest may take place at the same time as
the planting for next year, the ground is tied up for a
full year, and cannot be used for any other purpose.
4. Special propagation techniques.
While small sized seed potatoes may be planted
whole, larger ones must be cut up.
Sweet potatoes must be kept under carefully
controlled conditions until the tubers sprout plants,
called slips, which are then removed from the tuber
for planting.
5. Particularly careful handling and storage
Tubers must be handled carefully and stored under
the right precise conditions, as they are more
susceptible to damage than seeds. Holding sprouting
potatoes until the soil is ready is only one problem.
All ofthe Level 4 vegetables listed below are
mentioned by Munro and Small (1997), but the less
familiar ones are very challenging to grow in this
country.
Level 4. Clones
Genus Examples
Solanum potato
Apios chorogi, groundnut
Ipomoea sweetpotato
Oxalis oca
Polymnia yacon
Tropaeolum mashua
also these species
Allium sativum garlic
Allium ampeloprasum elephant garlic
Helianthus tuberosus sunroot
The common garden potato, Solanum tuberosum, also
called Irish potato or white potato, is commonly
propagated clonally, from a small whole potato or
from chunks of potato, each ofwhich contains an
'eye'. Potatoes also grow flowers, which produce
true seeds. These true potato seeds can be planted,
and will produce highly variable plants.
Level 4 example:
Helianthus tuberosus,
the Sunroot
A level 4 vegetable
Helianthus tuberosus is a relatively little known plant,
native to eastern Canada and adjacent North America.
It is useful as food and feed, and for biomass. It
thrives in agriculturally marginal soils, and as a food
source is of particular interest to diabetics due to its
composition.
Common names based on the awkward 'artichokes of
Jerusalem' lead to confusion, mistakes, and possibly
contribute to the lack of awareness of this plant in
Canada and other countries. The common names
sunroot in English and (variants of) topinambour in
French and other European languages are less
awkward.
There exists not a single variety of sunroot, but rather
many. Dozens ofnamed Helianthus tuberosus
cultivars are held in private collections and some 170
accessions in the Agriculture Canada seed bank in
Saskatoon. Varieties vary in flavour, flowering, and
many other practical aspects.
Popular literature on Helianthus tuberosus
exaggerates its uncontrollable weediness; my own
studies reveal that there are both spreading and
clustering (non-spreading) varieties. Moreover, it is
easy to eradicate the sunroot from a plot that one
wants to use for other crops.
Although the season for harvesting the tubers for food
and for seed, is during an unconventional time for
gardening - after first Autumn frost and again at
Spring thaw - a home gardener can harvest them with
minimum inconvenience if the proper planting and
digging techniques are used.
Existing literature lacks descriptions of varieties of
Helianthus tuberosus. The tables below distinguish
four main types, based on attribute clusters in
appearance, growth habit, harvesting, and culinary
considerations.
The sunroot is commonly propagated from whole
tubers, although a (less-productive) plant will grow
from any small tuber chunk. According to Deppe, if
the flowers of two sunroot varieties are crosspollinated,
then true seed will form, similar to those
in the common sunflower, Helianthus annuus. This is
not reported elsewhere in the literature, and just what
constitutes a distinct variety for this purpose is also
unclear. (The common sunflower, Helianthus annuus,
is a level 2 plant. )
2 coriander Coriandrum Common Name Index 2 corn Zea
2 cucumber Cucumis
In general only the Genus is identified, as most
2 daikon Raphanus
species within a genus fall on the same Level for seed 1 eggplant Solanum
saving. 4 elephant garlic Allium ampeloprasum
Genus names (capitalized) are followed by species 3 endive Cichorium
names (not capitalized) in these cases: 3 escarole Cichorium
(I) where different species within a genus fall on 2 flint corn Zea
different Levels, which in this listing occurs only for 1 garbanzo Cicer
the two genera Phaseolus and Helianthus, and 2 Good-King-Henry Chenopodium
(2) for the Brassica and Cucurbita genera, since 2 gourd Cucurbita
species identification is complex, and information is 1 Green shiso Perilla
incomplete in many other sources on seed saving. 4 groundnut Apios
4 hard-neck garlic Allium sativum
For completeness, some alternative English-language 4 Jerusalem artichoke see sunroot
common names not included in the main text are 3 kale-collard Brassica
listed here so the user can determine the botanical 3 kohlrabi Brassica
name. 3 leek Allium
I lettuce Lactuca
3 mangel wurzel Beta
Level Common name Genus & species 4 mashua Tropaeolum
2 melon Cucumis
1 akajiso Perilla I miners lettuce Portulaca,
I aOJ ISO Perilla 3 mustard Brassica
artichoke, Jerusalem - see sunroot 1 New Zealand spinach Tetrogonia
I barley Hordeum 4 oca Oxalis
1 bean, broad - Vicia 2 okra Abelmoschus
1 bean, bush - Phaseolus vulgaris 3 onion Allium
1 bean, pole - Phaseolus vulgaris 2 orach(e) Atriplex
2 bean, scarlet runner - Phaseolus coccineus 2 pigweed Atriplex
3 beet Beta 2 lambs quartersChenopodium
3 bok choy Brassica 3 parsleyPetroselinium
1 broad bean Vicia 3 parsnipPastinaca
3 broccoli Brassica 1 pea Pisum
3 Brussels sprout Brassica 1 pepper Capsicum
1 bush bean Phaseolus vulgaris 1 pole bean Phaseolus vulgaris
3 cabbage Brassica 2 popcorn Zea
3 canola Brassica 4 potato Solanum
3 carrot Daucus 2 pumpkin Cucurbita
3 cauliflower Brassica 1 Purple shiso Perilla
3 celeriac Apium 1 purslane Portulaca
3 celery Apium 2 quinoa Chenopodium
1 chick-pea (garbanzo) Cicer 2 radish Raphanus
3 chicory Cichorium 2 rattail radish Raphanus
4 chorogi Apios 4 rocambole (hard-neck) garlic Allium sativum
2 cilantro Coriandrum 2 runner bean, scarlet - Phaseolus coccineus
2 citron Citrullus 3 rutabaga Brassica
3 collard (kale) Brassica
2 scarlet runner bean Phaseolus coccineus
4 soft-neck garlic Allium sativum
1 soybean Glycine
1 spinach, New Zealand - Tetrogonia
2 spinach Spinacia
2 squash Cucurbita
sunchoke seesunroot
2 sunflower Helianthus annuus
4 sunroot Helianthus tuberosus
2 sweet com Zea
4 sweetpotato Ipomoea
3 Swiss chard Beta
1 tomato Solanum
4 topinambour Helianthus tuberosus
4 Topinambur Helianthus tuberosus
3 turnip Brassica
2 watermelon Citrullus
1 wheat Triticum
4 yacon Polymnia
2 zucchini Cucurbita
Salt Spring Seeds. PO Box 444, Ganges BC V8K
Catalogue $2, available by December?
Website http://www.saltspring.coml-ssseeds
West Coast Seeds, 3925-64th St, RR#1, Delta BC
V4K3N2.
Catalogue $1, available by January?
Website http://www.westcoastseeds.com
Published Sources
For species names and English common names, I
have relied principally on the most authoritative
source listed below, Munro and Small (1997).
Inbreeding and outbreeding information is taken
principally from Deppe (2000) and Ashworth (1991).
I have learned a lot from the other recommended
readings and sources listed below.
Allard ( ) Plant Breeding .
Ashworth, Suzanne (1991) Seed to Seed. Seed
Savers Exchange (New edition to appear in 2002.)
Bubel, Nancy (1978) The Seed-Starter's
Handbook. Rodale Press. (A newer edition has
appeared.)
Deppe, Carol (2000) Breed Your Own Vegetable
Varieties. Chelsea Green Publishing.
(Recommended over 1993 edition)
Jason, Dan (1998) Living Lightly on the Land
Munro, Derek B. , and Ernest Small (1997)
Vegetables of Canada. NRC Research press.
Ottawa. 417 pp.
Robinson, Raoul () Return to resistance:
Small, Ernest (1997) Culinary Herbs. NRC
Research press. Ottawa. 710 pp.
Watts, Leslie (1980) Flower and Vegetable Plant
Breeding. London: Grower Books. GVPL
Other sources
Navazio, John (2003) Plant Improvrnent for Organic
Agriculture. Abundant Life Seed Foundation
intensive workshop, Port Townsend USA
Frank Morton (2002) lecture, personal
communication
Munk Bergin (2003) personal communication
