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Double Red Sweet Corn

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Public Domain Plant Breedingdirect participation in evolution

We come from a long history of change.

in the common purpose of serving life, humanity andsustainability

Public Domain Plant Breedingor

Why not take the genes in your own hands?

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Al Kapuler

Peace Seeds Lists PeaceSeedsLive.blogspot.com,PeaceSeedlingsSeeds.blogspot.com, Andean Crops:Yacon, Oca, Mashua, Mauka; Eco-sanity, Recreality,Biodiversity, Public Domain Plant Breeding, organickinship gardening, seed growing and collecting,propagation of PNW native plant species espLomatiums; propagating the rare and disappearing, toadapt and encourage adaptation of food and otherplants to the conditions of extreme weather; grexeswith mixed genetic populations of hybridity. Continuingto work with sunflowers, marigolds, tomatoes, andeanroots, thanks for seeds of mechamik, the large rooted,hardy, perennial sweet potato Ipomoea

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It comes from the environmentand is inscribed in our chromosomes.

It comes from the genomesand transforms the biosphere.

Alan M. Kapuler Ph.D.

Copyright in the Public DomainMarch 27. 2011

Requirements:1. InterestIt is easy to make some crosses, especially in wind pollinates

like corn and beets. The issue is which crosses to make.That means enough growouts to get in touch with the plants

you wish to cross, their parents and near relatives. Its okay to crosscorns but there are a lot of kinds of corns and corn crosses withteosinte.

The more acute our observations, paying attention to all thephases of growth, development, flowering, fruiting and maturationof the plants that involve us in breeding, selection and adaptation,the more likely we are to find something new, develop somethingunusual, contribute something to the wellbeing of humanity.

2. Willingness to LearnPlant genomes like that of the diminutive thale cress

(Arabidopsis thaliana), perhaps the most thoroughly investigatedflowering plant (in the Brassicaceae) has about 23,000 single copygenes. That is more than people have, by about a thousand.Genomes of both people and plants are profoundly complex,remarkably different, uniquely similar and worthy of investigating.From the atoms to the solar system, life has domain as our local andworld societies stumble further into the unknown.

3. PerseveranceNo matter what you read, see or figure out, there is always

more that is unknown, unfamiliar, inscrutable or inexplicable atone’s current level of understanding.

So while engaging in crossing plants, looking at progeny andselecting lines, it usually takes a few cycles and years to learn thebackground (the species and their primary crosses and hybrids) andthe current level of development (new, recent, breakthrough crossesand emergent new plant characteristics and combinations). Thencome the ones you make, select and develop which arise from thepreceding and which lead to originality, insight and adaptive newcultivars.

4. DevotionSometimes it takes planting and replanting, overcoming

vagaries of the weather, denying populations of herbivores yourcrops, overcoming intransigent weeds, struggling with too manybugs, slugs and snails. Then there is inconvenient timing, poorlychosen cover crops, new crops that escape, the endless selectionunder the forces of environmental change and internal genetic

pandurata....and during the past few years explorationof wild tomato species and their progeny with heirloomand modern cultivars has given rise to new hypertresstomato plant architecture, From the work of PeaceSeedlings with zinnias we are selecting Crown Tiger'sEye Zinnias, a remarkable floristic development.

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Andean tubers grown by Peace Seedlings 2010

oca (red tubers) and mashuapilifera (white tubers)

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Sliced raw tubers of yacon

YACON- Smallanthus sonchifolius

YACONRenaissance of an Ancient Andean Foodplant

A.M. Kapuler Ph.D.

12-28-04

The Andean people of montane Southamerica havedeveloped more root crops than any other people in thehistory of the earth. While potatoes (Solanumtuberosum, Solanaceae) are familiar to us, many of theother root crops found in the rocky mountain cordillera

YACON: Renaissance of anAncient Andean Foodplant

change.5. Gardening Skill

No matter how much one grows and has grown, there is alwaysmore to grow.

There are many gardening techniques. Unfortunately, manygardeners use too many poisons. Hand weeding, good tools, movinginto springtime with a good head, an appreciative heart and lots ofkinds of old and new seeds to plant are healthier aspects. Organicsystems are an advance towards microbiologically based fertilitysystems. Improving soils on site from the cycles of growing andcomposting are essential endeavors. Watering systems are importantand merit thoughtful consideration. Minimize amendments.

1. BiodiversityWe live in a crucible of the creativity of/in life. It is an

ongoing marvel. We now see the perspective of the receding horizonof extincted and the emerging frontier of surviving organisms thatextends unbroken in essence for billions of years if not older thanthe solar system.

Life is myriad, diverse, persistent, adaptive, a mega-genomeof multigenomes encoded in DNA, RNA and protein. In ourchromosomes are the genes for building ribosomes. They arebillions of years old as is the making of proteins from translatingmessenger RNA.

These core discoveries are central to a unified biology. Thisis how life is able to remember the events of the environment, andadapt to circumstances as is clearly seen in the structure andbehavior of our immune systems.

Viruses inhabit most of the cellular creatures that live on thisplanet. Their structures and taxonomy are deep, diverse andremarkable. They are the holders of the collective storehouse ofgenetic information of and about life. There are many, many moreof them then most of us reckon. Immense beyond huge. Awesomeand particular. The cells they live in are either microbial (bacteriaand archaea) or eukaryotic. All the plants, fungi, animals and insectsare eukaryotes. And we all have microbes living in most of ourcells. Our cells are multigenomic. So are those of a maple tree.

In the latest edition of Mabberley’s The Plant Book, thereare some 270, 000 or so species in almost 14,000 genera. But in theworld’s herbaria, there are some 30,000 undescribed species. Wecall most green organisms plants. Some are blue-green bacteria.Some are seaweeds or mosses or ferns. Then we get to conifers andthe flowering plants. Most of what we garden are flowering plants.And for temperate zone gardeners about a quarter to a third of theworld flora is temperate or temperate adaptable. With a greenhouse,one can engage a much larger subset of diversity.

Fields of Activity

A. The Earth’s Organisms

B. Viruses, Microbes and Eukarytic Cells

C. The Planetary Flora

D. The Gardener’s Handful

that extends first east to west in Venezuela andColombia and then north to south from Equador toChile, are not. These include oca (Oxalis tuberosa,Oxalidaceae, the tuberous rooted Shamrock clover),ulluco or melloco (Ullucus tuberosus, Basellaceae),maca (Lepidium meyenii, tuberous rooted cress,Brassicaceae), arracacha (Arracachia xanthorhiza(Andean carrot, Apiaceae), achira (Canna edulis ediblecanna, Cannaceae), mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum,tuberous rooted nasturtium Tropaeolaceae) and yacon(Polymnia sonchifolia tuberous rooted Andean daisy,Asteraceae). In this article I will discuss several realmsof discoveries that concern yacon.Yacon has been in cultivation as a food and medicinalplant for at least a millenium. It is of interest togardeners, farmers, consumers, elders, diabetics,weight watchers, raw foodists, dieticians, biochemistsand foodies in general.As a garden plant, yacon grows 4-8’ tall with softattractive leaves, pliable stems like a sunflower, andmakes edible tubers in 3-6 months after planting inmid-spring. Yields are double to triple that of potatoes.The largest tubers are 1-3 pounds and look like sweetpotatoes. Occasionally 3-5 pound tubers are found. Forhigh yields, thorough and frequent watering in lateAugust thru mid September is essential. Whenharvested the somewhat fragile tubers are clear totranslucent white. After curing for 1-2 weeks in the sun,on a shelf or in a greenhouse, the skins turn red-purpleand the tubers become much sweeter.A relative of dahlias and Jerusalem artichokes, yacon isa plant with multiple uses.Health Promoting Aspects of the Tubers:While yacon has been a traditional Andean foodplantoriginating in Peru and grown from Venezuela to Chilefor centuries, only recently has it become of interest tothe rest of the world. It was grown in Italy in the mid1930’s and currently it is an important crop in theCzech Republic and New Zealand. Japanese scientistsin the late 1980’s found that yacon tubers stimulatesthe growth of probiotic microbes, particularlybifidobacteria (like the ones found in human breastmilk) and lactobacilli (like ones found in sauerkraut andkimchi fermentations), in our large intestine. At thesame time the numbers of putrifying bacteria likeclostridia and coliforms are reduced..Conjugates ofsucrose with fructose produce inulofructans, shortchain polymers, in the yacon tubers. The chain lengthof these polysaccharides is predominantly 3-7 and theyare easily broken down by lactobacilli andbifidobacteria. The human intestinal system cannotbreak down these fructose polymers explaining why formany years nutritional content of yacon wasconsidered rather low.The sweetening of yacon tubers with storage indicatesthat the tuber produces an enzyme which hydrolyzesfructose and sucrose from the inulins. From crystallineand crunchy whiteness with very little flavor, the tubersbecome very sweet and somewhat softer, thirst-quenching and a welcome treat during fall, winter andin the early spring..Recent studies of the composition of the tubers revealsthat anti-oxidant phenolic acids, chlorogenic acid,ferulic acid, caffeic acid and their derivatives arepresent in the tubers of yacon. These compounds areactive free radical scavengers (J. Chromatographic A.2003 1016:89-98). Free tryptophan, one of the

Of the hundreds of plant families, in the temperate zone wegarden in less a dozen. These are the daisies, legumes, umbels,chenopods, grasses, cucurbits, alliums, solanums, brassicas andmorning glory.

If one chooses to explore the planetary flora , organizing theplants in a phylogenetic or evolutionary array means looking intothe diversity with more than a passing glance. One can do thiswithin a single genus. One with 20-50 species is a good size to try.For a larger subset, one can do the Monocots, or the Old Trees, orthe Rosales, or the Legumes. All are interesting and if one isformulating survival of diversity, the more kinds we plant togetherwho are related together the more chances there are of encouraginginterbreeding and adaptation of their progeny in the current times oferratic weather and the consequences of environmental degradation.

Adapting plants that are vigorous, productive, with nutritiousand delicious attractive leaves and fruits to our own gardens hasbeen my primary objective in developing new cultivars. So sweetcorn and tomatoes have been constant foci. While my first crosses inthe late 1970’s were with corn, making new kinds of tomatoes begantwenty years later. It is possible to purchase some F1 seed and thenselect out a stable open-pollinated line. This is a good way to begin.There are many F1 hybrids available commercially and some arewide crosses that yield diverse and interesting F2’s. Others showvery little variation in the F2. After our family grew hundreds ofkinds of tomatoes for several decades, my daughter Kusra and Imade crosses of Lycopersicon (Solanum) habrochaites toLycopersion (Solanum) humboldtii.. It was an opportunistic cross,not by plan but circumstance.In the progeny were tomato plants whose inflorescences had tressesof more than 100 flowers. Some folks growing these hypertresstomatoes have had hundreds of flowers on a spike with huge clustersof cherry sized fruits. These are public domain cultivars. They haveseveral unique traits that can be introduced into many other of thepopular tomato subgroups: paste, rainbow colors, slicing, huge,determinate, indeterminate, drying, long storage, resistance toblights and so on.

By good fortune a comparable thing happened with vinepeas. Almost twenty years ago we began breeding peas, readingMendel to find out how to cross them, and making a public domaingreen snap pea wherein most of that category were patented. In ourpea growouts from seeds obtained from the SSE we had someCarnouby de Mausanne which has purple pods on bushes. So wecrossed Sugaree with the purple podded bush shell cultivar andseveral years later had a mostly snap pea line with purple pods. Thesnap pods were bitter. At that time in the field, there were Parsleypeas. They are bushes with shell pods and tendrils modified intoparsley-like leafy structures. An obscure garnish. We crossed the

E. Kinship Gardening

F. Common Garden Foodplants andFlowers

essential amino acids for protein synthesis and forhuman neurotransmitters like serotonin, in the tubershas also been reported (J. Agric. Food Chem. 199947:4711-13).Thus yacon tubers improve the health of our digestivesystem and by promoting the growth of probioticbacteria may be supplying us with B vitamins as well.

Health Promoting Aspects of the Leaves:The use of the leaves for tea has only recently becomeof great interest.Water extracts of the leaves of yacon are able toreduce the sugar content of our blood by increasing theamount of circulating insulin (J. Ethnopharmacol. 200174:125-32). Thus use of yacon tea may help thosesuffering from oxidative stress as in diabetes. In Japanand Brazil, the tea is used medicinally (Cell Biol.Toxicol. 2004 20:109-20).Free radical scavenging anti-oxidants are found in theleaves as well as in the tubers. Chronic illnesses likeatheriosclerosis may be remedied by including yacontea in the diet (European J. Nutr. 2003 42:61-66).Further studies of aromatic compounds in the leaves ofyacon find six anti-microbial sesquiterpene lactones,one of which, fluxtuanin, is most active against gram-positive bacteria like Bacillus subtilis (Biosci. Biotech.Biochem. 2003 67:2154-9).Thus yacon leaves provide a tea with several differenthealth promoting aspects.

An Example of a Non-violent Foodplant:Since the tubers have no eyes, they cannot serve forpropagation which is done by dividing the centralcrown, by cuttings or from growing up plants from cellsin tissue culture. Since the plants have a 4-6 monthgrowing season and flower in October to November,they rarely make fertile seeds. Crowns areoverwintered and split in the spring before planting out.All the other tuberous rooted plants used for food arepropagated from eyes that grow from the tubers:potatoes, oca, sweet potatoes, mashua, true yams(Discorea species), groundnut (Apios species),Chinese artichoke (Stachys affinis).. Other edible rootand bulb crops also have eyes on the top; carrots,parsnips, radishes, onions, garlic, turnips, etc . Yacon isunique in this respect. The edible tubers have no eyes.

Soil Improvement Following Cultivation:After 15 years of cultivating yacon, I have seenimproved soil tilth, the crumbly fertileness that isassociated with good humus content, water retentionand growth promotion. It has allowed me to positconnections between the inulin polymers made in theroots and the bacteria that make up a significant part ofthe biomass of organic soil, an a way analogous towhat happens when yacon as a food promotes healthpromoting bacteria in our large intestines.George Hendry has an analyzed the British flora inrelation to the production of inulins and their shortermembers called fructo-oligosacchariders. He found that15% of the British flora make inulins and fructo-oligosaccharides. The predominant flowering plantgroups that contain these fructose polymers are thedaisies (Asterales), the grasses (the plants of corn,barley, oats, rye) (Poaceae) and the alliums and othermembers of the order Asparagales, which includes theagaves (the fermentation of agaves to make tequila is

purple snap vine with a bitter flavor with a bush shell with notendrils and several years later had lines of good tasting snap vinepeas with hypertendrils. This hypertendril trait in the public domainmakes it possible to reinvigorate pea breeding as the hypertendrilsof the pea vines are distinctively beautiful. We like bicolor purpleflowers, in snow and snap cultivars as well.

In both of these examples with tomatoes and peas, the resultswere unexpected. It was pure discovery. What a thing to be able todo with most all the plants we garden.

In the mid 1970’s after collecting sw Amerind starchcorns, I wondered why all the sweet corns we liked to eatwere monocolors, all yellow or all white seeded. Aconsequence of this observation was Rainbow Inca SweetCorn, the first of our multicolored sweet corns. A later onewas Painted Hill Sweet Corn. Every once in a while a sweetcorn would have some dark burgundy purple, highanthocyanin seeds. We picked out a few and began selectingso that now we have Double Red Sweet Corn with intenselydark purple seeds from a genetic trait that inherits in thefemale. Some years ago, Rosemarie LaCherez sent us apopcorn (Chires) that tillers and makes 3-5 little ears perstalk. Some plants will have several dozen ears. Crosses withDouble Red Sweet Corn have given a remarkable diversityof new corns. Selection is difficult. The direction is stillinscrutable.

Marigolds and sunflowers have always been apart of our gardens. Years ago a neighbor gave us afew plants of a Tagetes patula marigold that was ina 1790’s gardening book called Striped Marvel orPinwheel. In 200 plants there was one withunattractive double flowers. We saved the seeds.They have given rise to China Cat Mix in whichmost plants are different from one another and toseveral new 3-5’ tall beautifully flowered cultivarscalled Frances’s Choice, Sparkler, Red Metamorphand Golden Star.

In 1997 we grew a kinship garden of the Daisy family,some 16 tribes of which we had reps (representatives) offourteen. In the sunflower tribe, the Heliantheae, there aremany genera and particularly in one, Helianthus, thesunflower genus, a group of 50 species endemic to themainland USA we had many species and cultivars. TheGRIN (Germplasm Resources Information Network) of theUSDA kindly provided seeds of more than a dozen speciesplus some collections of Helianthus annuus from differentcountries around the world. We planted them together.

F.1. Sweet Corn

F.2. Brassicas, Solanums and Daisies

based on inulin polymers). Fructans are also found inbacteria, mosses, liverworts and occasional fungi andalgae. This physiological characterisitic shared bymembers of the grasses (Poaceae, alliums (Alliaceae)and daisies (Asteraceae) reminds me of thebiodynamic concepts of guilds, plants that are routinelyfound growing together. Since these plants are majorcomponents of temperate ecosystems, the carbon-richinulins produced by them appear to be importantcontributors to the carbon requirement of the microbialecosystems that flourish in their rhizospheres.Recently, I asked Dr. Norman Pace, Professor ofMicrobial Ecology at University of Colorado in Boulder,Colorado, about the relationship between soilmicrobes, fertility and the production ofpolysaccharides in the soil. He suggested that recentdiscoveries in microbiology identifying cooperativecommunities of bacteria called biofilms may have to dowith the development of the fertility of the soil. Thesewidespread bacterial communities are orderedstructures of different kinds of bacteria analogous toorgan systems of animals. The heterogeneousbacterial communities are structured by extra-cellularpolymeric molecules made of sugars, amino acids andnucleotides.This leads to the idea that organic soil is a three-dimensional biofilm fed with carbonaceouspolysaccharides produced by certain groups of plantspromoting certain groups of, as yet unidentifiedbacteria and fungi. We know that rhizobia in legumesand Frankia mycobacteria in other Rosid 1 clade plantsfix nitrogen in genetically cooperative systems.Connections between nitrogen-fixing andpolysaccharide-utilizing bacteria are likely a corecombination in the development of fertility andsustainability in the temperate zone.Commercial Products:Yacon grows in the mountains from 3-7000 feetelevation in Southamerica along the cordillera of theAndes, from the north in Colombia and Venezuela toBolivia and Chile in the south. In New Zealand, driedyacon chips are sold as an export commodity to thefood and health conscious in Japan. The Japanesehave fructo-oligosaccharide commercial productsincluding one called neosugar which has become analternative sweetener. The Japanese also use chunksof yacon as a component of yoghurt. In Peru, thetubers are squeezed and a thickened sweetener likemolasses is produced for commerce.In the USA I first saw it growing in Steven Spangler’sgarden in Vista, California in the late 1980’s. RickMcCain of Quail Mountain Herbs in Watsonville,California and Jerry Black of Oregon Exotics promotedits cultivation during the mid 1990’s and Peace Seeds,Corvallis, Oregon grew enough crowns during the pastfew years to further the distribution of yacon throughSeeds of Change in Santa Fe, New Mexico, NicholsGarden Nursery in Albany, Oregon and Sow OrganicSeeds in Williams, Oregon (organicseed.com). It is alsoavailable through the Seed Saver’s Exchange inDecorah, IA.

Summary:The Andean daisy yacon has many virtues. Thetuberous roots are a health promoting food either eatenraw or cooked. The leaves as a tea also have healthpromoting properties. As a gardeners plant, yacon

Several years later it was clear from the volunteers thatcrosses between H. annuus and the Texas SilverleafSunflower Helianthus argophyllus had taken place. Theplants flower for several weeks to months longer in our coolwet fall weather. The finches prefer the seeds. The flowersare smaller, with dark centers and in many flowered racemes.Now 13 years later we are once again introducing Helanthusargophyllus into the field to introgress once again with ourreseeding volunteer population of sunflowers to developsome new architecture, flower structure and arrangement.

Living in the Pacific Northwest in the remnants of amagnificent, giant coniferous rainforest and working in therain has led overwintering foodplants to catch our attention.Most interesting to us have been the brassicas.

Kale thrives here. There are many kales with many kindsof leaves in two species that do not cross (Brassica oleraceaand Brassica napus). Foliage varies from soft to hard, fromruffled to plain and smooth, from crimped and crumpled todark purple to pink striped held on plants whose staturevaries from a foot or two to 10’ tall with a diversity ofbranching patterns. They intercross easily, generallyoutbreeders. We have had good crosses involving 2 plants(Romanesco Broccoli x Eco Brussel Sprouts). With sevenplants, a central one became the female and the other sixsurrounding ones were males. We work towards perennialsthat make broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and smallcabbages. One cabbage had 8 heads but the polyheaded traitwas not inherited in 40 next generation plants.

The Solanaceae is a temperate zone gardening familywith many well known fruits. With capsicum peppers,eggplants, tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, potatoes,tree tomatoes, there are good reasons for adapting/selectingfor our own favorite kinds. If one prefers growouts tofavorites then there are hundreds to thousands to grow up.After decades of Capsicum annuum hot pepper cultivars wehave been growing Capsicum baccatum, Aji Colorado whichhave many subspecies/cultivars that can be interfertile withour other successful cultivars. Peppers that like cool, wetlocal temperature conditions would make sense. The AppleChile, Capsicum pubescens, has overmintered in our non-freezing greenhouse and begun to look like Physalisperuviana, the Giant Groundcherry, now ten years old.

Fields of Activity2. Genetics

The 64 codon triplet genetic code of life is the basis of auniversal biology.

Embodied in DNA and RNA, triplets of the nucleic acidbases A=adenine, G=guanine, C=cytosine, T(U)=thymine(uracil) specify each of the 20 amino acids that make upproteins. The strings of nucleic acid bases code for genes, a

improves the fertility of the soil in which it is grown. Itproduces 2-3 times the yield of potatoes and has beensuccessfully grown from Maine to Oregon in the USA.The clump-forming plants grow from 4-8’ tall dependingon the length of the growing season and theabundance of water. It does not become weedy and isthus far free of disease. During the past several years,new scientific studies of the health promoting molecularcomponents of yacon tubers and leaves provideincreasing support for including it in our diets andgardens.

Late Summer

Yacon Plants

few in most viruses, low thousands in bacteria/archaea, highthousands in fungi and tens of thousands in plants andanimals.

The tiny free living cells whose ancestors have livedand inhabited the earth for several thousand million yearshave given rise to blue-green bacteria that have becomechloroplasts in the leaves of trees, and all green plants. Acommon ancestor of a common soil bacterium became themitochondria that burn sugar to make ATP, the commonenergy source of most eukaryotic cells. Our bodies, theplants we grow and the foods they provide are cellular inorigin. One makes many. And from many comes one. Thisriddle is a core axiom of genetics. During the 1960’s,Seymour Benzer genetically analyzed a bacterial virus calledT4. He studied the rII region of two genes connected by aspacer that he genetically removed. It was called 1589. Itwas the 1589th genetic variation within the gene amongmany more hundreds of thousands that he mapped. His workrevealed the complexity of the genetic fine structure in anobscure virus found in urban garbage that lives in a commonhuman intestinal bacterium. And his work and discoveriesimpacted our understanding of the common genetic systemthat is central to all life. His life has been devoted to publicdomain breeding with bacteria and their viruses and fruitflies (read Time Love Memory by Jonathan Weiner} Theinternal core process of change is in our genomes, in thenucleic acids in our cells, in the collaborative network ofcells that coordinate the growth, repair, adaptation andwellbeing of our bodies,

Change is inexorable. No matter what we think, do orfigure out, it is always in process. Genomes and organismsare not frozen. Heirlooms change. Gardeners and seedcollectors are part of the evolutionary mix. And whetherchange or not, selection is inexorable. Adaptation is theresult.

C. Number and VariationBy getting a full set of chromosomes from each parent,

most of us and most plants are diploids. Occasional doublingof the chromosome number gives tetraploids. Crossingdiploids with tetraploids gives triploids, Some plants like theAndean root daisy Yacon are polyploids with 6 or 8 sets ofchromosomes. Sweet potatoes are hexaploids but the speciesthey come from are diploids.

Sometimes large populations give more opportunity forseeing changes. Sometimes one can jump ahead with just afew plants.

The back to the land movement of the 1960’s

A. Cells

B. Adaptation and Selection

The Future of the Future

took many urban and suburban kids into the fieldsand countrysides. Partly in opposition to theendless wars, partly in search of an agrarian lifebuilt on healthy soil, clean water, fertile soil andthe heirloom seeds of our ancestors, we havecontinued growing organic gardens, saving seedsof heirlooms and local native species. Impelled bythe times that continue to change, we have begunbreeding new vegetables and flowers for the publicdomain to promote a healthy biology unfettered byownership in support of a path towards worldpeace and the well being of everyone.

Contextual CommentaryAs I grew up, service was not high in the goals of the

society. Success was more important. Now as we encounterecological catastrophe in the era of cyber communication, ourdisastrous ignorance about discovery and invention makes greed andprofit the leading values.As an anodyne to these problems, a virtuous, difficult endeavor likeorganic gardening is a good beginning.Public domain plant breeding and kinship gardening are two of thenext steps. The first develops new, original and adaptive genecombinations for our local ecosystems, their gardens and forsustainability. Plants that cross pollinate yield populations of F1’sthat give evolving grexes that can optimize adaptation and survivalin these times of radical weather. Kinship gardening is anexploration and conservation matrix for getting direct experiencewithin the 300,000 plant species and their manifold hybrids.In the garden, our ten standard deviation units beyond the normideas can be tested out, explored for veracity and transformed intobetter soil, fertility, home grown seeds and new kinds for everyseason.As pre-human biodiversity continues to decline, there has been anincrease in patenting, ownership and MTAs (Material TransferAgreements) for plants and other living systems. While the geneticsystems of almost all life pre-exist humans, one can manipulate oneor a few genes, or insert a gene from a distantly related organismand obtain ownership rights. This tends to close down innovativeand more broadly useful work with these organisms. The basicframework of life, the wild species, are common to all, like the airwe breathe. With decreasing wild diversity, more and more becomesproperty. Public domain plant breeding is a counter to this. Indeed,the original intent of agricultural universities with public domainplant breeding programs was to provide locally adapted cultivars sothe growing of food was diversified to provide health and stabilityfor the society at large.This ongoing travesty of treating life as intellectual property is quiteunlike the patenting of a computer or its parts. We did not invent the

Posted by Al Kapuler at 9:26 PM

cell.Public Domain Plant Breeding has for generations establishedimproved plants. Primary foci are plant architecture, flowering,fruits, fertility, resistance to fungi, bacterial and viral diseases,ecological adaptation, nutrition, and beauty. By making crosses,growing them out, selecting in a wide variety of aspects, oneengages the genetic system of life, a place of immense activity andpotential. So as plant breeders who work for the common good inthe public domain, we are allied with the genetic systems to providechanges that have benefits to humanity, local and planetaryecosystems. In this sense, the genetic systems and their codes arelike common source computer code for which a system has beendeveloped which allows one to use it, to change it, to add to it, butnot to own it. Janet Hope’s recent book Biobazaar, the Open SourceRevolution and Biotechnology explores the analogy of the geneticcode with the computer code in terms of open source and publicdomain.

AcknowledgementsGreat thanks to the myriad people and the aeonic

lives of all the organisms of the biosphere. Greatappreciation for the opportunity to discuss genes, geneticsystems and the open threads of life in the context of publicdomain plant breeding.

We continue to learn more about life and existencewith every moment and every day that passes. These areextraordinary times.

Genomics is developing a reality map of the processof evolution throughout billions of years. And we carry itaround in our hundred trillion cells. The environment leavesits marks in our chromosomes and genetic systems exist topromote adaptation, facilitate change, correct excess damageand counteract poisoning. This makes survival more likely,gives us a chance for cooperation and promotes conservationof diversity and ecosanity in our times.

Particular thanks to Linda Kapuler of Peace Seeds,Dylana Kapuler and Mario Dibenedetto of Peace Seedlingsand Kusra Kapuler.

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