Don\u2019t just grow your own \u2013 breed your own too, creating \u2018grexes\u2019 bespoke to your garden and resilient in our changing climate, says Alys Fowler. Illustration Rosanna Morris <\/p>
I can think of no greater way to be truly connected to your garden than to weave yourself into the ecology of the space, by breeding plants<\/a> that respond both to you and to your garden. It\u2019s such a simple idea to grow a garden that responds to you as a gardener, both to your quirks and desires, but also to your place, your soil microbiome<\/a>, your compost<\/a>, your sunny corner and your frost pocket. And one of the easiest ways to get there is through creating \u2018grexes\u2019.<\/p> You may also like<\/strong><\/p> We are all trying to do this one way or another, but from the very beginning, that most simple of gestures \u2013 to sow seed<\/a> \u2013 takes us, often unwittingly, further away and not closer to this desire. Because we start with a very, very small gene pool of named seeds, selected many moons ago or recently bred, but seeds that by the nature of the market have been chosen to be uniform, to look, to perform, to mature and harvest alike. Seeds designed to be reliably the same because they have been bred from the same parents. If you want \u2018Gardener\u2019s Delight\u2019 tomatoes<\/a>, you let like cross with like. You don\u2019t let \u2018Gardener\u2019s Delight\u2019 cross with \u2018Big Boy\u2019 because then your seeds won\u2019t be true.<\/p> This breeding method means you can choose plants that work directly for you<\/p><\/blockquote> There are plenty of reasons to grow individual cultivars and to preserve these genes and traits. But there are just as many reasons to do it differently. Rather than breeding for sameness, imagine breeding for difference and variation, so the gene pool is ready and adapted for change. Imagine vegetables that don\u2019t mind a very dry summer<\/a>, or a wet one, or need minimal watering<\/a>, or no feeding. It\u2019s not the stuff A \u2018grex\u2019 has multiple hybrid crosses, and so multiple parents, which creates a complex genomic diversity<\/p><\/blockquote> Imagine if, rather than growing all the same variety, you grew a gang, where everyone was a little bit different. Then you\u2019d be creating a \u2018grex\u2019. The term comes from the Latin, for a flock. A \u2018grex\u2019 is a group that has shared characteristics, rather than shared genetics. Or, to put it another way, a \u2018grex\u2019 has multiple hybrid crosses, and so multiple parents, which creates a complex genomic diversity. It might mean you breed a bean with beans that look quite different, some brown, some black, some mottled, but the plants grow in a similar manner, roughly to the same height and like roughly the same conditions. Or, it might mean tomatoes that look very different, some plum, some round, some cherry, all tasting wonderful but never getting blossom end rot.<\/p> If you want early ripening, you only select plants that do that<\/p><\/blockquote> Creating a \u2018grex\u2019 is easy, though it takes a little more time to stabilise the population \u2013 maybe five Adaptation happens faster in a \u2018grex\u2019 population than in a stabilised variety because it has more possibility for genetic recombination. Once you have a mix you like, you can give it to someone else and they can start to get it to adapt to their soil, thus exercising the gene pool a little more, each time building in more resilience for future gardeners.<\/p> It creates a community saving for now and the future<\/p><\/blockquote> The joy and the dream of this breeding method is choosing plants that work directly for you. If you want lettuce that never needs water or a courgette that doesn\u2019t need fertile conditions, then ruthlessly select just for that (as well as good taste) and I promise the seeds will adapt. Start off as broad as you can, with as many cultivars as possible in the first year. If you lose a trait, bring that cultivar into the mix again and just keep growing and saving.<\/p> No seed company replicates the work of many individuals creating their own \u2018grexes\u2019. The act of many individuals doing this creates something quite special; it creates a community saving for now and the future, because although the mix has been saved for your exact spot, the complexity of the gene pool means future gardeners get a bigger library to borrow from. It\u2019s true life work. <\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Don\u2019t just grow your own \u2013 breed your own too, creating \u2018grexes\u2019 bespoke to your garden and resilient in our changing climate, says Alys Fowler. 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