The second day of the 2012 Sustainable Agriculture Conference included talks on the history of plant variety development in Alaska, seed libraries, the Peony Growers Association, farm contraptions, top-bar hives for beekeeping, potato late blight, Community Supported Gardening, food initiatives at UAF, the Farm to School program, farmers' markets, a panel on growing local for restaurants, and more.
The first talk of the day was given by Charlie Knight, who described what the term "variety" meant, and talked about variety release, registration, and certification. The State of Alaska's only state-run plant materials center, the Northern Latitude Plant Materials Center, provides foundation seed to farmers. The Center's purpose is to maintain varieties of seeds that meet Alaska's environmental requirements and to promote commercial development of native species. On their website are numerous two-page fliers for different varieties of seed, including native plants; revegetation training manuals and guides; cultivar release notes; potato and horticultural reports; and more.
Knight said he was familiar with grasses and grains, but had to do a bit of digging to find out about other plants developed for Alaska. He presented a timeline for different types of plants:
Fruits and Berries
before 1900: Anway strawberry, developed by Charles Anway, who used a beach strawberry crossed with Fragaria chilloensis. Another species used in strawberry development was Fragaria virginiana: a wild strawberry.
1907: Sharle strawberry, developed by John Sharle
1968 Alaska Pioneer: developed by Dinkel and Kallio
1970: Susitna, Matared
1976: Kiska raspberry
1970s: John Holmes: the Wien crabapple
1991: Kenai Carpet Nagoonberry, developed by Kathy Wright (used as a landscaping plant)
Potatoes
1765: Haida, Indian Tlingit fingerling potatoes, shipped north from the Peruvian Andes
1944: Alaska, Arctic Seedling
1953: Knick, a white potato
1959: Alaska 114
1961: Stately
1963: Alaska Russet
1969: Alaska Frostless
1974: Snowchip
1976: Alaska Red
1979: Denali
1980: Highlat Russet
1982: Alasclear
1989: Iditared (red skin, yellow flesh)
2010: Magic Molly (blue skin, blue flesh) Bill Campbell
Vegetables
1970: Alaska 6467 cabbage; Alaska 6469 cabbage
1970: Early Tanana tomato
1974: Yukon Chief sweet corn
1974: Sub Arctic 25 tomato; Polar Star tomato; Polar Baby tomato; Polar Beauty tomato
Note: The Early Tanana and Sub-Arctic 25 Tomato were developed in the Interior for Fairbanks' cool conditions; the Sub-Arctic 25, developed by John Holm, is still grown (John's son, Jim Holm, runs the family business, Holm Town Nursery, where it can still be found, but other companies also offer this variety).Grasses
1971: Nugget Kentucky bluegrass; Polar bromegrass
1978 Arctared red fescue
1980: Tundra glaucous bluegrass; Sourdough bluejoint reedgrass; Alyeska Polargrass
1985: Norcoast Bering hairgrass
1987: Kenai Polargrass
1988: Nortran Tufted hairgrass
1991: Egan American sloughgrass; Gruening alpine bluegrass
1994: Benson beach wild rye; Reeve beach wild rye; Wainwright slender wheatgrass
Grains
Note: many grains developed by the Experiment Station used an -al ending in their name, which related to the territorial ALAS postal code. Eventually this became confusing (Alabama vs. Alaska) and so the code was switched to AK.1920: Trapmar barley
1955: Gasser wheat
1973: Chena wheat
1977: Toral oats
1978: Ceal oats; Lidal Barley; Weal barley
1981: Thual barley; Otal barley; Datal barley; Ingal wheat; Nogal wheat; Vidal wheat; Bebral winter rye
2001: Finaska barley
2006: Wooding barley
2009: Sunshine barley
Willows
Note: willow varieties were developed as revegetation and landscaping plants.1985: Roland, Wilson, Oliver, Long, Rhode
Deirdre Helfferich of the John Trigg Ester Library (and part-time employee at SNRAS) gave a presentation on seed libraries and the Growing Ester's Biodiversity program, a community seed-sharing program at the Ester library and the first such program in Alaska. (See more on this program in the new issue of Agroborealis [PDF].) Seed libraries are a fairly new phenomenon, most of them only a couple of years old. They differ from seed banks in that they lend to the general public, rather than researchers or institutions, and they focus on sharing seed rather than preserving germplasm. Seed libraries also tend to be small and local, providing gardening and seed-saving workshops or tips, and are usually founded out of concerns for food security, traditional culture, environmental health, food quality, community resilience, and support for the local economy.
The oldest seed library in the US is 12 years old, the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library (BASIL), founded as part of a nonprofit environmental & community organization. BASIL was the inspiration for many other seed libraries and projects in the country. In 2010, Richmond Grows was founded as a program housed at the Richmond Public Library. This seed library also aims to serve as a model for other seed libraries, and lists 42 seed libraries and institutions with seed programs in the US, a number that is rapidly increasing.
Seed libraries are hosted by a broad range of organizations, from libraries like the Richmond Public Library or the Fairfield Public Library to museums to gardening clubs, resilience, Slow Food, and environmental groups. Likewise, they operate in different ways, generally with patrons "checking out" seeds, growing the plants and saving some mature seed to "return" to the library for next season. Many seed libraries solicit donations of seeds to build their collections. Sometimes a membership fee is charged. Some seed libraries do not hold collections of seeds, but instead host seed-saving and gardening workshops, or informational lectures, seed swaps, or other events. Most have a combination of all of these.
Jan Hanscom gave an update on the Alaska Peony Growers Association and its work over the last year. The APGA is an organization dedicated to supporting the development of an Alaska peony industry, supporting its members in all aspects of growing, processing, transporting, and marketing peonies; and advocating for research and appropriate technology transfer with respect to growing peonies in the Subarctic. "It's all about the heat," said Hanscom, "Warm soils are the key." She described the high tunnel experiments and the cluster of growers on the Kenai Peninsula around Homer and Kenai. Fortunately, she said, "Moose don't eat peonies, although they may push the roots down too deep in the soil." There are a few insect pests; aphids love birch trees, and, she cautioned, if you have birches growing near your peonies the aphids will hang out on your flowers.
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