Seed distribution

2015 Native Seeds/SEARCH $2000 Grant

Amaterra’s $2000 grant to Native Seeds/SEARCH Conservation Farm for improving and building new infrastructure will help take their seed conservation mission to a new level. To meet a critical infrastructure need of expansion and growth, a green house is being constructed for the production of crop seedlings and food crops.

Sorting and Packaging Seeds

The seedlings will be sold in the NS/S Retail Store for our Spring, Monsoon, and Fall plant sales. The retail store sells seedlings from several growers in Arizona. Seedlings from the Conservation Farm will introduce new crops from the seed bank and make them more widely available to gardeners, thereby increasing the diversity of adapted and drought tolerant crops for local food production. Food produced in the green house will be sold to restaurants to promote the mission of NS/S to the public. The sale of the plant seedlings and produce from the green house will also provide a reliable income stream for the Conservation Farm each year.

Another function of this green house will be to produce seedlings for the Conservation nssfarmsunflower175 Program’s grow-outs of crops from the NS/S seed bank. A new seedling house with phytosanitary protocols ensuring disease-free seedlings is, therefore, critical. Some seedlings are grown from seeds that are endangered so there is a need to ensure that the seeds can be multiplied from healthy plants. The green house also provides a season extension function so that crops that may need a longer growing season than the Patagonia site normally provides, have an improved chance of producing seed in the field.

Farm Greenhouse under big wind In addition to the season extension function, the green house will provide climate mitigation for seed crops and for food production. This is an ever more important function in this time of changing and extreme climate. The unheated hoop house type of greenhouse will use only solar energy and ventilation to control the conditions inside the structure. This type of inexpensive, energy efficient, structure is widely used in agriculture today. These efficiencies are transferable to a wide geographic area, urban areas, and to different scales of food production.

Native Seeds/SEARCH 2012 Grant

2012 Grant for Native Seeds/SEARCH

For many years Amaterra and members have supported Native Seeds/SEARCH, a non-profit conservation organization based in Tucson, Arizona.

…so many possibilities

Since 1983, they have become a major regional seed bank and a leader in the heirloom seed movement. Their seed bank is a unique resource for both traditional and modern agriculture. It includes 1800 varieties of arid-land adapted agricultural crops, many of them rare or endangered. They promote the use of these ancient crops and their wild relatives by distributing seeds to traditional communities and to gardeners world wide. Currently they offer 350 varieties from the collection grown out at their Conservation Farm in Patagonia, Arizona. Also, many of their seeds and associated products are offered through an online store, annual seedlisting, and retail store.

During the past couple of years, Bill McDorman, the Executive Director of Native Seeds Search, and Belle Starr, the Deputy Director, have instituted and conducted a number of one-week Seed Schools in Tucson, drawing people from all over the country. Their goal: “to inspire and empower a diverse selection of new ‘seed citizens’–passionate growers, inventive breeders, and careful curators of the planet’s tiny life-conducting jewels.” The passion of these two individuals for seeds is awe-inspiring.

squash blossoms

Because the Tucson Seed Schools have become so popular, there is now a need to widen the program and conduct the schools in locations throughout the United States, as many participants at the Tucson school have asked that Bill and Belle come to their state to do so–particularly in light of the drought that is affecting so much of the country. This will require new curriculum to include information for a wider range of growing areas.

For those who would like to learn more about the organization, check out their website www.nativeseeds.org/.

This grant was arranged by Amaterra Director, Nancy Wall.

Tag: Seed distribution

2015 Native Seeds/SEARCH $2000 Grant

Native Seeds/SEARCH 2012 Grant

2012 Grant for Native Seeds/SEARCH