We’ve been swamped with requests for list of Seminis varieties. These change all the time. Seminis has their most popular varieties list on their site. This is not an all inclusive list, only the top sellers or the top ones they are pushing. We understand that many of you want a full and easy viewable “one stop” list – unfortunately, we have neither the money nor staff resources to put together an inclusive list, but welcome and encourage a volunteer to do so and we will reprint here as well as on our main web site Home Gardener Varieties
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Thank you very much for this information. The more we can educate our market customers about this issue, the more support we will have for dropping these varieties from production. I did not realize so many (which is not that many) of Johnny’s varieties were Seminis seed. Rather disturbing. We are a new farm, and save mostly herb and flower seeds for beneficial hedgerows, but I hope to do vegetable seed saving and breeding work in the future. I will look over my packets, and if I find something send it to you. We did like ‘Fairytale’ ‘Hansel’ & ‘Gretel’ eggplant quite a bit. I often dream of being a farmer in 1951, or 1870 times were simpler & there was more common sense.
Thank you for your valuable blog!
Mary Ellen D. Chadd
Cape Elizabeth, Maine
I guess I’m not terribly worried about patents on F1 hybrids, as long as the company that patents them is the company that actually developed the F1 hybrid. Seminis hasn’t put this label on any open pollinated varieties, have they? What happens if one of their hybrids contaminates my open-pollinated seed? Do I become the vegetable version of Percy Schmeiser? And, what’s that business about not taking material for “genetic analysis”? Does that mean the farmer can’t test the seed for GMO contamination? I’d like to see somebody challenge the patenting of “heat tolerance” in broccoli. Patent law shouldn’t grant that, and if it granted, it shouldn’t stand up to a legal test.
One of the major dangers is that the patents are not variety specific, but apply to genotypic and phenotypic expression. The patents for heat tolerance that you mention is only one of hundreds of such examples. For the F1 varieties I have seen to date, they are patenting disease resistance to particular races – again – something they did not INVENT, but that occurs naturally in the plant. It’s a complete misuse of the patent system. No reason we shouldn’t go back to PVP system and allow breeders to receive royalty, but allow for continued innovation of plants.