Seeds are the most foundational part of our farms, and caring more about which seeds we use, and how we prepare them for planting, can provide our greatest return on investment
Till or no-till? Use glyphosate or don’t? Put faith in mineral nutrition or use pesticides? Plant cover crops or fallow, with biological and humic acid applications?
There are infinite steps one can take when beginning to contemplate a regenerative farming journey. With all of these options, many growers overlook the most foundational part of their farms and their best initial return on investment: seeds. The seeds we select to plant, how we treat them prior to planting, and the many relationships we seek to cultivate between seeds, microbes, soil and plants are some of the most important components for success on our farms.
On the surface, seeds may seem to be simple, mechanistic, reproductive objects that begin the crop cycle. We plant them and hope they will be transformed into the food, fiber and fuel we aim to grow. However, this overly simplistic perspective greatly handicaps our ability to manage healthy crops. It does a great injustice to ourselves and to future generations.
Dr. Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya Biodiversity Farm, talks about the common indigenous worldview in which farmers have a paramount duty to save seeds. These little time capsules connect us with thousands of farmers, land stewards and seed keepers across time immemorial who have never stopped this great work. Every single crop we know today was developed by countless growers’ hands across generations. They typically selected the most resilient, most nutritious, best-tasting, and most culturally significant plants every year.
I witnessed the power and brilliance of this indigenous technology when visiting Navdanya farm and seed bank in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. I was privileged to spend a rice season there where I witnessed the planting of over 736 varieties of rice. Being a fifth-generation farmer, born and raised on a conventional rice and crawfish operation in south Louisiana, the diversity of rice had my head spinning. It blew my mind to learn that there are varieties of every color of the rainbow, that have wildly different flavor profiles, that can withstand hurricane-force winds without lodging, that are disease resistant, that are drought tolerant, and that are even saltwater tolerant.
As I witnessed in India, preindustrial growers typically had access to a seed toolkit that could play a big part in solving crop difficulties or climatic challenges. Yet in the past 50 years, farmers in the United States and many other countries have handed over this seed-stewarding responsibility to megacorporations that look straight past resiliency, nutrition, taste and cultural significance for the sake of their bottom lines.
Farmers have been sold expensive seeds that contain proprietary technology that adapts them to chemicals that were promised to fix nearly all of our problems. Because many farmers have forgotten the power that lies in the genetic diversity of multigenerational seeds, we’ve put our faith in agribusiness and its unsuccessful attempts to reinvent the wheel. At first, these high-tech seeds seemed to be the magic they were promised to be. But this illusion is quickly dissipating. It is increasingly more common for farmers to find themselves stuck with higher input costs, herbicide-resistant weeds and eroded seed quality, all while having to figure out how to adapt their operation back to the days before high-tech seeds were on the scene.
By outsourcing responsibility for providing seeds, we as farmers have relinquished control of our farms. I know many growers in recent years who have been put into a tough situation at planting simply because their seed supplier was short on inventory or had difficulty in sourcing older, “low-tech” varieties. Saving and cleaning your seeds can not only immediately save money on input costs; it can also give you back the power to plant whichever varieties you want, exactly when you want.
One of the other incredible benefits of seed saving is that it allows us to select for seeds that carry more of the beneficial microbes we know are so important. The spectacular work of Dr. Mary Lucero and Dr. James White, among others, has provided us all with an understanding of the amazing relationships between microbes and plants. These beneficial microbes, known as endophytes, can help plants obtain adequate nutrition via the rhizosphere, increase resilience to abiotic and biotic stresses, enhance seed germination, and stimulate plant growth. Endophytes can be passed from the parent plant to the seed, just as microbes are passed from a mother to her baby during birth. Every year you save seeds, you strengthen these relationships between plants, their endophytes, and other beneficial microbes in your soil.
When visiting Bidii Baby Foods, an indigenous baby food company that uses traditional farming practices in the Navajo Nation, I was amazed to learn that their only inputs are seeds, water and cover crops. Farm owner Zachariah Ben told me this while we were hand-harvesting beautiful, full corn ears with very few signs of pests or disease. I even picked one that stretched from my fingertips to halfway up my bicep. I believe this is largely possible from the deep relationships that come from recognizing seeds as the incredible organisms they are, tending to them with the understanding that if you care for them they will care for you, and growing in the same soil that is tenderly stewarded year after year.
Along with saving and cleaning your seeds, one of the quickest ways to save money and to produce an effective crop response is to treat your seeds with biological inoculants and mineral nutrition. In much of the agricultural industry today, farmers buy seeds that are treated with fungicides, insecticides and avicides to protect the seeds once planted. When operating within the dominant agricultural perspective, this makes complete sense. But even with the best intentions, when we use this reductionist perspective, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. We are using poisons with the hope that they will provide us with life.
Much like parents, farmers are simply facilitators in the growth of new beings. We are deeply invested in preparing them for successful navigation of the big world out there. In an overly protective, poison-filled environment, it is more difficult for seeds to show us their full life-bearing potential. We also typically neglect seeds’ nutritional requirements for a strong, resilient start. Conventional seed treatments can inhibit endophytic colonization and the beneficial microbial relationships that work to get plants the nutrients they need, free of charge, as described in the rhizophagy cycle.
Endophytes can be lost with seed drying and storage — in some crops more than others — but farmers in the Iroquois Nation figured out a remedy long ago. They use a seed-treatment practice generally referred to as “corn medicine.” This practice has been around for hundreds, most likely thousands, of years. From the modern scientific understanding of endophytes, we can understand the brilliance behind it. Their method, simply put, involves making tea from wild plants sourced nearby. In doing this, they are cultivating the indigenous endophytic microbes from those plants. When their corn seeds are inoculated with this solution, the biostimulating crop response can be described as nothing short of good medicine when compared with untreated seeds.
Alongside biological inoculation, treating seeds with nutrition can provide a cost-effective crop response. According to Dr. James White, amino acids applied to seeds can stimulate endophytic colonization and jumpstart their relationship-building in the rhizosphere. Seed-applied micronutrients can not only promote quicker germination and increased seedling health but can also promote disease resistance throughout the crops’ life cycle. For example, rice blast is a major disease that usually affects the crop later in the season. Research from the late Dr. Anna Primmavesi of southern Brazil has shown that treating seeds with copper sulfate and manganese sulfate can successfully prevent blast, as well as other fungal diseases in rice, throughout the growing season. When considering the cost of fungicide applications, this can lead to substantial savings — as soon as your first year incorporating this method.
Every season that we uphold our duty as farmers to select the best seeds, treat them well, and care for them, we not only reduce input costs — we also strengthen their genetic code and deepen the long-standing relationship that began when our modern crops were domesticated from wild plants. When you’re thinking about the next steps to take on your regenerative farming journey this season, do your best to release the need for control. Have faith in the effectiveness that comes from the supportive facilitation of this divinely created, self-organizing system under our feet that we are blessed with.
Bruno Sagrera is a regenerative rice, crawfish and cattle farmer in southwest Louisiana. He is also a consultant for Advancing Eco Agriculture.
