Landrace seeds from Joseph Lofthouse, USA

Jen Fan wrote:Wonderful work   I need self-pollinating varieties for my greenhouse.  Your seed info page says they're "promiscuously pollinated", is this self-pollinating?  

Thanks. I am selecting for tomato plants with promiscuous flower types, that are incapable of self-fertilization. The thought process behind this strategy, is that every seedling will be a new F1 hybrid in every generation, thus making it trivial to trial  hundreds of thousands of unique varieties for resistance to blights, septoria, bug, climate, soil, etc.

Hey Joseph, I am super excited to try some of your seeds this year. Planning to start out with just squash as I launch my own landrace wintersquash project. Of course looking at your seed list I was over run with 'Oooooh look at that shiny! I want it' so I'll probably order more than planned. That said I just want to make sure I understand how to order seeds; I send a list of the seed I am interested in, along with an appropriate amount of silver as well as $4 in modern fiat and a return address? Is there any other steps I should take?

Stephen: Yup, that's it... The post office raised rates this week, so please include $5 for shipping. Silver travels really well if taped to cardstock.

I'd love to meet some of you in person. I'll have seeds at the following seed swaps:

Salt Lake City, Utah. Feb 2nd. 9th West Farmer's Market Seed Swap.

Ogden Utah. Feb 9th. Ogden Seed Exchange.

Santa Fe, New Mexico. Feb 22nd or 23rd. Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance's Reunion of the Radicles.

When tomatoes were originally domesticated, a few fruits were taken from the Andes to Mexico. Then a few fruits were taken from Mexico to Europe. Then only some of the population left Europe to return to the Americas. With each move, the plants left behind their accustomed pollinators, and they lost genetic diversity. To cope, tomatoes became a mostly inbreeding species. Generation after generation, they have been shedding genetic diversity and becoming ever more inbreeding. The heirloom preservation mantra didn't do them any favors, it's emphasis on "purity" accelerated the inbreeding and loss of diversity. A study that I read recently found more genetic diversity in one accession of wild tomatoes than in the combined accessions of all the domestic tomatoes in the study. It's estimated that domestic tomatoes contain less than 5% of the genetic diversity of the wild tomatoes. I think of genetic diversity as a plants intelligence. The more diversity there is, the more intelligent a variety is, and the more capable it is of solving it's own problems with soil, bugs, changing conditions, climate, farmers, mammals, etc.

The promiscuous tomatoes are not suitable for greenhouse-growing, unless pollinators are provided. I am actively selecting for promiscuity, and against inbreeding. I am specifically breeding for tomato plants that cannot self-pollinate, and therefore will always be cross-pollinated, and always require a pollinator to move pollen between plants that are not closely related. That will tend towards high genetic diversity, and highly intelligent plants.

I live in a climate generally considered not viable for growing melons, but the village near me has been growing watermelons for the past two or three seasons with good commercial success, using black plastic mulch. So I planted Lofthouse-Oliverson Muskelons in 2019 and just ate the first one -- yum! I heat my house with an attached plastic solar greenhouse that we take off in April or May, so I seeded it in place in the greenhouse in April, babied the seedlings after they were exposed to the elements and cold nights in May, and mulched with natural materials. The two plants that resulted were not impressive looking, seemed to kind of stop growing in August at a small size, but they set fruit and ripened well before first frost, so I'm very happy with it. Both plants had very small fruit, kind of two servings.

I am saving seeds from these two plants for 2020 but should I order more seed for the future, to avoid inbreeding problems? Or do melons not have much of that?

I give this seed source 10 out of 10 acorns.

This was my first time personally growing winter squash or melons, and both (two plants of each) had good germination, growth and production, considering my short season and lack of attention.

I pulled the last of my true seed potatoes out the ground last week. I'll try to post a pic of all the tubers soon. The few that survived the utter neglect did well and produced very attractive tubers up to about 4 in x 2 in. I'm planning to plant the tubers out next year with a tiny bit more care and grow enough of each to sample and see if any are real winners. The fact that they produced anything under the conditions I subjected them to (dry farmed in shallow silt with no weeding) is a testament to the strength of the breeding

Finally following up with promised pictures. Not of the tubers though, never got around to that. These are the plants grown from some of those tubers!
https://i.postimg.cc/ZndFxC6t/IMG-20200711-172120-5.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/6Q433nKX/IMG-20200711-174145-5.jpg

This is before and after my "mounding" attempt with hay. I did manage to get one mounding of soil on before this but these plants absolutely exploded up! I believe there are two plants from the same seed here, additionally I think there are several other plants that are from Josephs seeds but I'm a Dingus and didn't label anything.

Another follow up on a long term project. Some of this is seed from my own 4 year effort to develop a flour corn that finishes in my damp coastal environment. Some of it is lofthouse unity corn. I mixed everything together before planting so I don't know what's what. Honestly, I suspect most of this is my seed because this is just about 1/3rd of the total and is made up mostly of smaller and earlier finishing plants. Lots of plants left are Mich larger than anything I've seen from my seed so I suspect its got Joseph's hand in there but I'll share this here anyhow

Is this still available? I can send $5 for postage and handling + extra to get tasty tomatoes next year?

Looking at the work that Joseph et al have undertaken and the results, I am amazed that they are not out there.  The work done by Premies, to my reading is far superior to the commercial hybridisers who are commanding a premium.  The answer I suspect is that Permies do it for people without regard for money where as the commercial guys do it for money without regard for people.  Thank you for your fabulous information.  It actually gives the average bloke the basics to have a go at getting a better product for themselves and their community.  

Can you use clary sage leaves?  Either medicinally or culinary?

I am not personally selling seeds any more. I don't want to sell living beings, who I consider to be my children.

Experimental Farm Network is the near-exclusive distributor of seeds grown on my farm. Giving Ground Seeds and Buffalo Seed Company sell many varieties. Snake River Seed Cooperative distributes some of my varieties, grown by regional farmers. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds sells  Astronomy Domine sweet corn. The following seed companies carry a few varieties: Wild Mountain Seeds, Seed Savers Exchange, High Ground Gardens, Miss Penn's Mountain Seeds, and Hawthorn Farm Organic Seeds. Check http://Lofthouse.com for additional sellers.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Lofthouse-Astronomy Sweet Corn

(source)

My introduction to landrace growing came with a packet of Astronomy Domine Sweet Corn seed from a landrace developed by Alan Bishop of Pekin Indiana. It is a multi-colored sweet corn. He combined hundreds of varieties of sweet corn into a single population. I fell in love with the colors, and the different shapes of cobs, and the colorful silks, and that every plant grew differently from any other.

I have been growing it ever since. After many years, the genetics of the population have shifted to be more adapted to my farm, so I call it Lofthouse-Astronomy now to distinguish it from other populations. For example, my population is more colorful than the original, and about 10 days earlier. My population is more resistant to pheasants and small mammals.

Lofthouse-Astronomy is old fashioned sweet corn, therefore, it germinates very reliably in cold spring weather. Kernels are chewy, and not sickly sweet. Flavor is robust, and variable due to different colored kernels contributing different flavors to each bite. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Adding a hint of vinegar to the cooking water really helps to brighten the colors on the table.

Loving the colors of the cobs.

Loving the diversity of the tassels.

I never knew such beauty in such simple things like corn tassels. Just goes to show you that living in a place that have soo much of one kind of crop seems to make you numb or oblivious to the amazing things that were put here for us or forgotten in the recent march toward "progress".

I give this seed source 10 out of 10 acorns.

I have managed to get my hands on some of Joseph Lofthouse's coveted landrace seeds and I can not be more excited. These seeds contain the elements of genetic diversity, resilience, and tenacity. These are not the same 'cookie-cutter' genetics people are used to from a pack of seeds where everything is expected to come out in a uniform way. These seeds allow a variety of diversity to be grown; the strongest of the mix surviving and being picked to pass on their own genetics and so on. The seeds arrived intact, complete, and healthy looking. Joseph looks at his seeds like his children and I truly treasure these!

Thank again for your work Joseph and I would recommend to everyone to learn what you have been doing and to participate if able.

Any chance that there are some seeds available for 2025?

See Joseph's message above:

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:I am not personally selling seeds any more. I don't want to sell living beings, who I consider to be my children.

Experimental Farm Network is the near-exclusive distributor of seeds grown on my farm. Giving Ground Seeds and Buffalo Seed Company sell many varieties. Snake River Seed Cooperative distributes some of my varieties, grown by regional farmers. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds sells  Astronomy Domine sweet corn. The following seed companies carry a few varieties: Wild Mountain Seeds, Seed Savers Exchange, High Ground Gardens, Miss Penn's Mountain Seeds, and Hawthorn Farm Organic Seeds. Check http://Lofthouse.com for additional sellers.

I am offering 50 seeds from my apricot breeding project. The seeds are free, cause I don't sell my children. I'm asking $50 for my labor and to cover postage. Shipping to usa only.



About half of the seeds are from the 10% of trees that I consider the best. The rest of the seeds are from the one third of trees that I judged to be great trees. They bear well. They survived my winters. They taste nice. The seeds were pollinated by insects.

The seeds lay outdoors all winter, and are ready to germinate. I collected them damp, and will send them in damp coconut coir by priority mail. I recommend planting them immediately upon receipt. I have sprouted them both in pots, and in the ground. In either case, I recommend 2" of weed free compost over top of them. If you would like to crack them before planting, I recommend a c-clamp. In the past, they have germinated great just by planting the intact seeds. If you have rodents that like tree seeds, I recommend protecting with netting or hardware cloth.

I have sorted the seeds by color, and by weight to try to eliminate any seeds that didn't seem viable. I cracked open 10 seeds at random, and found 70% that looked like viable seeds.



Contact me by Purple Moosage for payment and shipping details.