Tomato growing, an example to ponder

[elephant]

Although, when it comes to gardening, I'm just able to let a few aromatic plants grow and prune my roses, I think this "anti-GMO news item" cannot go unnoticed:

http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2015/03/09/t ... tes-257958

[dede2002]

Very nice, thank you for this report.

It is peasant common sense, who loves his land and his profession.

This story of fine for the sale of unauthorized seeds is an incitement to civil disobedience ...

This year I try for the first time to sow tomatoes, a local variety of open ground, in order to make seeds.
If I succeed, I will propose some here with the history of mother plants, and I will also think about selecting those which have "suffered the most" and not only the most beautiful.

Knock on wood, right now they look so fragile ...

[Ahmed]

I already knew this rather atypical character!

His approach shows that an unconventional approach can lead to surprising and very interesting results.

I am not very convinced of the thesis of weakening plants due to too much good care; I would prefer a bad conception of variety selection, which operates at the expense of rustic characters.

The transmission of acquired characters suffers, from a theoretical point of view, from a certain artistic vagueness, it seems, it would be good to know more about this.

[izentrop]

Hi,
Excellent!

To find out more, here is the speech of the interested party:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmaaYoZ8s9Y

and its site http://www.lepotagerdesante.com/ listed in my favorites.

[Rabbit]

This person most probably relies on the works of Mitchourine. Of which I can only advise you to read his books which were translated.
It is possible to find at least one by searching well on the net.

[Did67]

As so often here, I happen to be a splinter!

I worked for a dozen years with peasants, in the Sahelian environment (where there were some famines) ...

And I found these farmers very poor, sometimes with more seeds after a drought.

With "varieties" (the word is wrong, it is "populations") of millet never selected other than by the choice of the peasants themselves.

The experience was that these traditional "population varieties" had cycles that were too long to adapt to desertification.

So I introduced a diagram where, in the center of the plot, we put a few feet of short cycle varieties (90 days or less), selected in an agronomic station and so that there is a crossing of absorption ... [in short, I had to introduce genes of precocity that the local millet did not have; and which he never acquired despite the droughts experienced]

I observed that the peasants "kept" the fruits of these crosses, like their traditional varieties, moreover ... Even an illiterate peasant is very suspicious when it comes to varieties! He will never put all the souefs in one basket. And his field will be, unlike our plots, a real mess!

I don't understand why the tomatoes in Lodève are so smart and adapt so quickly (they "get it", in a way) and the millet in Chad so stupid (and didn't "understand" that the climate had become harsher) ...

Just a thought ... Passing by.

[Ahmed]

Yes, I think that your reservations are perfectly justified and my previous message joins yours on this point.
However, the living is so diverse that all of this deserves to be deepened, given the stakes.
If this phenomenon is confirmed, even partially, it would be infinitely more interesting than "free energy" *, which seems to fascinate many.

* I say this by comparison with a widespread fantasy, but for those who take the trouble to read me, they know how much I would consider harmful the positive realization of this hypothesis fortunately without foundation.

[Rabbit]

Learn about Mitchourine and his work.

You will see it is quite fascinating. It will help you understand what the tomato seed producer is doing. Genetics is not everything, the living has a remarkable capacity for adaptation. But to benefit from it, according to Mitchourine's work, respect a methodology.
In his books he explains, he is not stingy with details and it is quite accessible to the neophite. But you have to focus.

[Rabbit]

Here is a start of reading:

http://biblio.rsp.free.fr/Pdf/Mitchou1.pdf

[Cuicui]

I always took the seeds of the most beautiful tomatoes. I may have had to take one of the most stunted ones.