USDA seeds

[ginger2778]

Hi all. Can anyone tell me how you go about finding and ordering seeds from the USDA? Their website isn't very readily user friendly on this topic, and I did a search here, but cant seem to find a thread telling this info.
Any help much appreciated.

[Heritage]

Ginger,

I updated a thread addressing your interest:
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=20610

Steve

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Hi all. Can anyone tell me how you go about finding and ordering seeds from the USDA? Their website isn't very readily user friendly on this topic, and I did a search here, but cant seem to find a thread telling this info.
Any help much appreciated.

Ginger, please read the link that Heritage provided and you'll see that since the system has been so abused in the past they now require documentation that you are either a researcher, and they do want documentation, or if it's for educational purposes and that's too broad in my opinion but they do look for documentation on that as well and I know a couple of folks who really spread it thick in trying to document that when all they want are seeds for them selves to either trade or offer outright to others..

What happened is that folks were requesting tomato varieties from the USDA that were already available to SSE members and then to some public seed sites.

Back in the early 90's Craig L and I got a lot of older commercial varieties out but back then you could do it.

I got really got annoyed with someone at another message site who kept telling everyone to get seeds from the USDA b'c all of you are tax payers so it's your right. No way.

I contacted the head of the USDA station at Ames, IA and asked for a statement that I could post publicaly, and was sent one and did so, several years ago, which just reitereated what I said above about varieties already out there and documentation needed.

Just for your information, about 95% of what's listed are old outdated acessions that were once used for breeding purposes by researchers. Craig and I felt that we got out most of the good stuff. But you won't find the varieties that most folks post in their growout posts, far from it.

Craig and I were both asked to be on a committee that was supposed tor eveiw the tomato accession in the USDA along with some seed physiologists, academis researchers, etc. But there wasn't even enough money available to set up an initial meeting so that got dropped ASAP/

I think you can see that I get a bit emotional about this whole issue of getting seeds from the USDA, I just can't help it, I'm sorry.

If you want seeds of the perhaps harder to find varieties, then consider joining SSE so you get the annual Yearbook which has about 4,000 listings for tomatoes alone.

Ok, I'll shut up now.

[Fusion_power]

I'll add that I get a few seed from ARS-GRIN each year. They are always for varieties that are unavailable anywhere else. I am able to request seed because I have a business and put the business name on the request along with a specific stated reason why I want the variety. For example, this year I got a few varieties of beans that I want to cross with some other varieties that I already have in order to incorporate better disease and heat tolerance.

I very much want the seed storage to remain available for legitimate research work. It should not be abused and most of all should not be used as a source of "cheap seed".

DarJones

[Boutique Tomatoes]

I'll second that there are legitimate uses for the system for private individuals. I've gotten a number of things out that simply were no longer available anywhere and am working on doing a large enough grow out on a few things to send the seeds off to others for evaluation.

This year 12 of my Caribbean tomato trial varieties and 8 of my Caribbean pepper varieties came from ARS-GRIN. I do have a business as well and my purpose for getting these particular varieties was to evaluate them for possible use in island style sauces using ingredients where the original seed stock for the ingredients came from a single island where possible, or at least were typical of the region years ago.

I hope that noone would attempt to use it to get varieties already available, but do think it is important that it remain available to anyone with a legitmate interest in the varieties maintained there that were not already discovered and subsequently made available outside of the system.

[Doug9345]

I have a Question. How do you find out what the USDA has in their vaults?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Doug9345

I have a Question. How do you find out what the USDA has in their vaults?

You don't.

There are nine USDA stations in the US,each one doing growing outs of different crops. I'll speak only to the Tomato one which is at Geneva, NY.

You go to the PCGRIN website for tomatoes and see what's listed. And when it was possible to acquire seeds before all the documantation, etc., that's been mentioned above, then you requested the tomato seeds from the Geneva Station.

They do grow outs there and save their own seeds, but last I knew the isolation distance was zero, or nearly so, which is why Craig and I got so many crossed varieties and very old seeds as well. I do think the situation has improved in the meantime, so I'm told.

If Geneva doesn't have what you asked for then they go to the backup BIG long term storage place in Ft. Collins, CO, and if they have them then they send those.

So if you look in the SSE YEarbook, for instance , and you see a variety with NSSL and a number, it's from the National Seed Storage Laboratory in CO.

Other varieties listed in the YEarbook may have a PI ( Plant introduction) number after the PI.


And some of the PI stations are really out of room. When Dr. Oved Schiffris, who bred Big Boy F1 was still alive, he'd gone from Burpee to Rutgers and got much more interested in squash breeding, all of his squash germplasm was in the basement of his home in NJ. Many were worried about that, for good reason and tried to convince him to let folks in to inventory it and send the germplasm to the PI station that does squashes.

Oved finally gave in and I helped wear him down along with several of the Prof at Cornell. I'd gotten to know him well when looking into the parentage Of Big Boy F1 and then when he spent a summer with Glenn Drowns of Sandhill Preservation he called me all the time b'c he was lonely, his wife of many years having recently passed on. They they found that the squash PI station wouldn't accept that germplasm.

What's happened is that the growout PI stations simply are not getting the Fed dollars to do a good job and have had to downsize what they do with a smaller staff. And there's lots of accessions that really have no current meaning or use b'c they were part of breeding lines long since abandoned. I spoke of this about tomatoes and the Geneva station above.

Finally some folks were able to get Oved's squash seeds accepted, and that's great b'c he bred many novel and important varieties.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

You don't.

There are nine USDA stations in the US,each one doing growing outs of different crops. I'll speak only to the Tomato one which is at Geneva, NY.

You go to the PCGRIN website for tomatoes and see what's listed. And when it was possible to acquire seeds before all the documantation, etc., that's been mentioned above, then you requested the tomato seeds from the Geneva Station.

They do grow outs there and save their own seeds, but last I knew the isolation distance was zero, or nearly so, which is why Craig and I got so many crossed varieties and very old seeds as well. I do think the situation has improved in the meantime, so I'm told.

If Geneva doesn't have what you asked for then they go to the backup BIG long term storage place in Ft. Collins, CO, and if they have them then they send those.

So if you look in the SSE YEarbook, for instance , and you see a variety with NSSL and a number, it's from the National Seed Storage Laboratory in CO.

Other varieties listed in the YEarbook may have a PI ( Plant introduction) number after the PI.


And some of the PI stations are really out of room. When Dr. Oved Schiffris, who bred Big Boy F1 was still alive, he'd gone from Burpee to Rutgers and got much more interested in squash breeding, all of his squash germplasm was in the basement of his home in NJ. Many were worried about that, for good reason and tried to convince him to let folks in to inventory it and send the germplasm to the PI station that does squashes.

Oved finally gave in and I helped wear him down along with several of the Prof at Cornell. I'd gotten to know him well when looking into the parentage Of Big Boy F1 and then when he spent a summer with Glenn Drowns of Sandhill Preservation he called me all the time b'c he was lonely, his wife of many years having recently passed on. They they found that the squash PI station wouldn't accept that germplasm.

What's happened is that the growout PI stations simply are not getting the Fed dollars to do a good job and have had to downsize what they do with a smaller staff. And there's lots of accessions that really have no current meaning or use b'c they were part of breeding lines long since abandoned. I spoke of this about tomatoes and the Geneva station above.

Finally some folks were able to get Oved's squash seeds accepted, and that's great b'c he bred many novel and important varieties.

Great very informative post Carolyn.
Steve thanks for the link to the previous thread, it explained things very well.
I am not a researcher, but I wish I was,I find that tomatoes are fascinating, and are getting to be my obsession.
It's really a shame that people screwed up a good thing with their abuse, and an even greater misfortune that there is no funding now for the program.
I guess I will stick to the SSE since I am a member there.
Great info about the PI land NSSL listings, very useful for me, thank you both.