Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Last updated

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE) is a cooperatively-owned seed company. SESE is a source for heirloom seeds and other open-pollinated (non-hybrid) seeds with an emphasis on vegetables, flowers, and herbs that grow well in the Mid-Atlantic region. SESE also supports seed saving and traditional seed breeding through their product line, through lectures and workshops, and by working with over 50 small seed-growing farmers in the Mid-Atlantic and other parts of the United States. SESE publishes an intermittent email newsletter and blog for gardeners, as well as the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange Catalog and Garden Guide.

SESE has introduced family heirloom varieties such as Edmonson cucumber, Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato squash, and White Mountain Cabbage Collards, and reintroduced heirloom varieties long absent from the marketplace, such as the Amish Moon & Stars watermelon. [1] It pledges not to knowingly buy or sell Genetically Modified (GMO) seeds or plants.

Jeff McCormack of Charlottesville, VA founded SESE. Its first catalog was printed for 1983, with 65 varieties. In 1999, Jeff sold SESE to Acorn Community Farm, an intentional community in central Virginia. SESE currently generates a large majority of Acorn's income, and also helps to support Twin Oaks Community, which manages the company's sales of seeds to stores and to school fundraisers, as well as growing seed.

The operational cycle for SESE is highly seasonal. From January to April the focus is on filling seed orders. In May and June, sweet potato slips are shipped. From March to October there is much work in the gardens, including tending seed crops and taking trial notes. In September and October garlic, onion bulbs, ginseng and goldenseal are shipped. In October and November, there is a focus on seed cleaning, germination testing, and catalog editing.

SESE partners with Monticello to put on an annual "Heritage Harvest Festival" in September. The Heritage Harvest Festival is a non-profit event designed to educate the public on the importance of organics and heritage varieties. Ira Wallace is an organizer of the Festival. An article in the Charlottesville Tomorrow stated that she “set up the partnership between Southern Exposure and Monticello in 2007.” Wallace said in that same article that “‘the first Festival was a celebration of the growing interest in preserving our food heritage, and sustainable agriculture...I had a feeling that it mattered to a lot of people in our region.’” [2]

SESE is a member of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association which brought a lawsuit against Monsanto to prevent them from suing organic farmers when they are contaminated by Monsanto products. While SESE and OSGATA technically lost the suit, the Federal Appeals Judge panel did rule that Monsanto could not sue farmers with less than 1% contamination levels. [3]

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange uses both USDA certified organic seed stock as well as non-certified ecologically grown seeds from trusted sources. It pledges not to knowingly buy or sell genetically engineered seeds or plants. SESE has introduced heirloom varieties long absent from the marketplace, such as the Amish Moon & Stars watermelon [4] and the Big Rainbow tomato. [5]

Other organizations SESE collaborates with include the Organic Seed Alliance, the Piedmont Environmental Council, the Virginia Association for Biological Farming, Seed Savers Exchange, and Plant a Row for the Hungry.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melon</span> Type of fruit

A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a "pepo". The word melon derives from Latin melopepo, which is the latinization of the Greek μηλοπέπων (mēlopepōn), meaning "melon", itself a compound of μῆλον (mēlon), "apple, treefruit " and πέπων (pepōn), amongst others "a kind of gourd or melon". Many different cultivars have been produced, particularly of cantaloupes.

Seed saving Practice of saving plant reproductive material

In agriculture and gardening, seed saving is the practice of saving seeds or other reproductive material from vegetables, grain, herbs, and flowers for use from year to year for annuals and nuts, tree fruits, and berries for perennials and trees. This is the traditional way farms and gardens were maintained for the last 12,000 years.

Acorn Community Farm

Acorn is a farm-based, anarchist, egalitarian, intentional community located in rural Louisa County, Virginia, United States, and is a member of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities. Acorn was started in 1993 as a spin-off community of the older, larger Twin Oaks Community. In the early 1990s the Twin Oaks population swelled to capacity, with there still being many more people who wished to join. The pressure of the large number of people desiring to live in the community encouraged Twin Oaks members to form another community nearby to accommodate more people. This effort resulted in, on a 75-acre farm 7 miles away from Twin Oaks, the formation of Acorn.

Seed company Business that sells seeds for flowers, fruit, or vegetables

Seed companies produce and sell seeds for flowers, fruits and vegetables to commercial growers and amateur gardeners. The production of seed is a multibillion-dollar business, which uses growing facilities and growing locations worldwide. While most of the seed is produced by large specialist growers, large amounts are also produced by small growers that produce only one to a few crop types. The larger companies supply seed both to commercial resellers and wholesalers. The resellers and wholesalers sell to vegetable and fruit growers, and to companies who package seed into packets and sell them on to the amateur gardener.

Heirloom plant Historic food crop cultivar

An heirloom plant, heirloom variety, heritage fruit, or heirloom vegetable is an old cultivar of a plant used for food that is grown and maintained by gardeners and farmers, particularly in isolated or ethnic minority communities of the Western world. These were commonly grown during earlier periods in human history, but are not used in modern large-scale agriculture.

<i>Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser</i> Supreme Court of Canada decision

Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser [2004] 1 S.C.R. 902, 2004 SCC 34 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada case on patent rights for biotechnology, between a Canadian canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, and the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto. The court heard the question of whether Schmeiser's intentionally growing genetically modified plants constituted "use" of Monsanto's patented genetically modified plant cells. By a 5-4 majority, the court ruled that it did. The Supreme Court also ruled 9-0 that Schmeiser did not have to pay Monsanto their technology use fee, damages or costs, as Schmeiser did not receive any benefit from the technology. The case drew worldwide attention and is widely misunderstood to concern what happens when farmers' fields are accidentally contaminated with patented seed. However, by the time the case went to trial, all claims of accidental contamination had been dropped; the court only considered the GM canola in Schmeiser's fields, which Schmeiser had intentionally concentrated and planted. Schmeiser did not put forward any defence of accidental contamination.

<i>Citrullus colocynthis</i> Species of vine

Citrullus colocynthis, with many common names including Abu Jahl's melon,colocynth, bitter apple, bitter cucumber, egusi, vine of Sodom, or wild gourd, is a desert viny plant native to the Mediterranean Basin and Asia, especially Turkey, and Nubia.

Kent Whealy was an American activist, journalist and philanthropist who co-founded Seed Savers Exchange and promoted organic agriculture and the saving of heirloom seeds. Raised in Wellington, Kansas he was inspired by the works of agricultural geneticists Jack Harlan and H.Garrison Wilkes to use his training in communications to promote the protection of genetic diversity in agriculture.

<i>Cucumis myriocarpus</i> Berry and plant

Cucumis myriocarpus, the gooseberry cucumber, gooseberry gourd, paddy melon, Mallee Pear or prickly paddy melon is a prostrate or climbing annual herb native to tropical and southern Africa. It has small, round, yellow-green or green-striped fruit with soft spines, small yellow flowers and deeply lobed, light green leaves. The melon occurs in disturbed soil and cleared or bare areas, and thrives on summer moisture.

Seed Savers Exchange, or SSE, is a non-profit organization based near Decorah, Iowa, that preserves heirloom plant varieties through regeneration, distribution and seed exchange. It is one of the largest nongovernmental seedbanks in the United States. The mission of SSE is to preserve the world’s diverse but endangered garden heritage for future generations by building a network of people committed to collecting, conserving, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants, and educating people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity. Since 1975, Seed Savers has produced an annual yearbook of members’ seed offerings, as well as multiple editions of The Garden Seed Inventory, and The Fruit, Nut and Berry Inventory. SSE also publishes Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners. The nonprofit has sold seeds to about 600 retail stores in the United States and Canada.

Cherokee Purple (tomato)

Cherokee Purple is the name of an old variety of tomato that develops a fruit with a deep, dusky-rose color while maintaining a somewhat greenish hue near the stem when mature for eating. The deep crimson interior and clear skin combination give it its distinctive color. It was one of the first of the darker color group of tomatoes sometimes described as "blacks." Southern Exposure Seed Exchange was the first seed company to offer Cherokee Purple, released in limited quantity in 1993. The Cherokee Purple has become a popular heirloom variety.

Southern Exposure may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Watermelon</span> Large gourd fruit with a smooth hard rind

Watermelon is a flowering plant species of the Cucurbitaceae family and the name of its edible fruit. A scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, it is a highly cultivated fruit worldwide, with more than 1,000 varieties.

Seed swap Event where gardeners meet to exchange seeds

Seed swaps are events where gardeners meet to exchange seeds. Swapping can be arranged online or by mail, especially when participants are spread out geographically. Swap meet events, where growers meet and exchange their excess seeds in person, are also growing in popularity. In part this is due to increased interest in organic gardening and heritage or heirloom plant varietals. This reflects gardeners' interest in "unusual or particular varieties of flowers and vegetables", according to Kathy Jentz of Washington Gardener Magazine (Maryland).

Bowman v. Monsanto Co., 569 U.S. 278 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court patent decision in which the Court unanimously affirmed the decision of the Federal Circuit that the patent exhaustion doctrine does not permit a farmer to plant and grow saved, patented seeds without the patent owner's permission. The case arose after Vernon Hugh Bowman, an Indiana farmer, bought transgenic soybean crop seeds from a local grain elevator for his second crop of the season. Monsanto originally sold the seed from which these soybeans were grown to farmers under a limited use license that prohibited the farmer-buyer from using the seeds for more than a single season or from saving any seed produced from the crop for replanting. The farmers sold their soybean crops to the local grain elevator, from which Bowman then bought them. After Bowman replanted the crop seeds for his second harvest, Monsanto filed a lawsuit claiming that he infringed on their patents by replanting soybeans without a license. In response, Bowman argued that Monsanto's claims were barred under the doctrine of patent exhaustion, because all future generations of soybeans were embodied in the first generation that was originally sold.

Monsanto has been involved in several high-profile lawsuits, as both plaintiff and defendant. It has been defendant in a number of lawsuits over health and environmental issues related to its products. Monsanto has also made frequent use of the courts to defend its patents, particularly in the area of agricultural biotechnology.

Kalahari melon oil also known as Tsamma (Damara/Nama), wild watermelon (English), bitterboela, karkoer (Afrikaans), wild watermelon, makatane (Setswana) or Mokaté oil, is a plant oil, extracted from the seeds of the Kalahari melon, which is endemic to the Kalahari Desert, spanning Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. Being one of 1,200 varieties of melon, Kalahari melon oil is distinct from regular watermelon seed oil. The seed of the Kalahari melon consists of approximately 50% oil, 35% protein and 5% dietary fibre.

Frank H. Morton is an organic farmer, gardener, plant breeder and seedsman known for creating dozens of varieties of lettuce.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ira Wallace</span> American author

Ira Wallace is a gardener, teacher and author. She manages Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, a cooperatively-owned seed company.

References

  1. ↑ Evans, Lynette. Moon & Stars watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) Seed-spittin' melons makin' a comeback. San Francisco Chronicle. 16 July 2005.
  2. ↑ Ambrose, Maggie (September 12, 2013). "Seeing Growth at the seventh annual Heritage Harvest Festival". Charlottesville Tomorrow. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
  3. ↑ APPEALS COURT BINDS MONSANTO TO PROMISE NOT TO SUE ORGANIC FARMERS OSGATA press release. 10 June 2013.
  4. ↑ Evans, Lynette. Moon & Stars watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) Seed-spittin' melons makin' a comeback. San Francisco Chronicle. 16 July 2005.
  5. ↑ Raver, Anne. CUTTINGS; Yes, We Have No Tomatoes, Yet. New York Times. 28 March 1993.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.