“Heirloom” plants can be interesting, but if they were so wonderful, there’d have been no need for the hybrids we have today.
““Heirloom” plants can be interesting, but if they were so wonderful, there’d have been no need for the hybrids we have today.”
One does not cancel the need for the other. There’s need for the hybrids, but there’s also need for a variety. If you narrow all our planted food down to nothing but a handful of hybrids, then you have a much higher chance losing those varieties, either through disease or terrorist attack.
Heirlooms also make for a much more interesting taste spectrum.
As I understand it heirloom seeds produce plants that produce seeds that will produce more plants. You can't get seeds off from hybrids and so you're forced to keep buying seeds. Think y2k, teowawki and other situations that would make buying seeds difficult.
““Heirloom” plants can be interesting, but if they were so wonderful, there’d have been no need for the hybrids we have today.”
Ahhhh. An opportunity to enlighten.
Heirloom plants have one thing that hybrids lack - a diverse gene pool.
Did you know, for instance, that the soy beans in production today all stem from just 6 varieties? If you eliminate the rest of the entire gene pool diversity of
thousands of varieties of plants, what do you do when an
unexpected virus, or pest comes along in the future?
The short answer is to watch your production plummet to near
zero.
Each heirloom has genetic diversity and carries attributes
we well may need some day.
Not to mention superior taste.
For supermarkets, tomatoes that ripen all at once are great.
Except they suck.