Saving Seeds for a Resilient Future

Episode #4

Show Highlights:

  • Importance of saving your own seeds
  • Advantages of saving your own seeds over buying from a catalogue
    • Climate adaptation (Heat tolerance, cold tolerance, drought tolerance, flood tolerance, seeds adapt to local soils, etc)
    • Taste 
    • Production
    • Disease resistance
  • Saving seeds from hybrid seeds
  • How to save seeds
  • Easiest seeds to start saving (Hint: Peas/beans, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers)
  • Starting a seed library
  • Seed School

https://permacultureforthefuture.com/episode4/

About Bill McDorman

Bill McDorman is Executive Director and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance (RMSA), a non-profit seed conservation organization serving the Rocky Mountain West and beyond. He was previously the director of Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson. Bill founded 3 seed companies including High Altitude Gardens and co-founded several non-profits including the Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Hailey, Idaho. He is the author of Basic Seed Saving which he wrote in 1994. He and his wife Belle Starr, former Deputy Director of NS/S and Deputy Director of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance created an innovative week-long training called Seed School, Seed School Teacher Training, Seed School Online, Grain School and recently an upcoming training called, Seed & Grain Forum. The courses have graduated over 1200 Seed Citizens since the original program began in September of 2010 including many seed librarians, growers and educators. Bill's latest passion is to bring awareness to certified organic, patented seeds that cannot be saved which flies in the face of fostering biodiversity and resilient seed systems.

Links: