“What the organic movement is about is food that’s grown in ways that are ethical and environmentally safe, and that will make you healthy,” Michaela Colley, program director of the Organic …
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Farmer Aaron Varadi (left) looks on as Michaela Colley, program director of the Organic Seed Alliance, explains how breeders of magenta chard weed out the undesirable elements of its gene pool, such as white stems, often via the expedience of literally hand-picking and throwing out the plants that have grown in ways they don’t want. Photos by Kirk Boxleitner
Among the strains of carrots served at Finnriver Farm’s taste test was the visually striking “Purple Haze,” grown from conventional seeds supplied by Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Phil Simon, a carrot breeder from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, noted that purple, yellow, red and white carrots can draw curious customers, but risk flowering early, when the roots are still woody.
Lindsey Du Toit, a vegetable seed pathologist for Washington State University, explains how certain strains of carrots are more susceptible to diseases such as powdery mildew. She added that the central parts of Washington and Oregon account for 75 percent of carrot harvests worldwide, in part because their dry winters allow farmers to leave the carrots in the soil.
Eve Dixon (left) and Kiersten Boulter set out bowls of bread and red pepper tapenade, prepared on site at Finnriver Farm.
Elsie Brittain was relatively unimpressed by the taste of carrot strain Y6364, grown from breeder seed by the University of Wisconsin.
“What the organic movement is about is food that’s grown in ways that are ethical and environmentally safe, and that will make you healthy,” Michaela Colley, program director of the Organic Seed Alliance, told visitors to Finnriver Farm Sept. 25. Guests prepared to graze through a buffet line of different varieties of carrots, tomatoes, lettuce and other vegetables during their third annual field day and taste test.
During the public tours of the on-site greenhouses and crop fields, Colley explained that Finnriver and the OSA partner with expert plant breeders whom she deemed “an important commodity” in farming, “since there are only so many true experts on carrots or tomatoes.”
Colley elaborated that these partners work together to determine which varieties of plants grow better in the Pacific Northwest, as opposed to other regions such as the Midwest, as well as which strains make more efficient use of soil nutrients, or are more naturally resistant to disease, thus precluding the need for pesticides.
The buffet meals that cap off these annual tours allow the members of the public to offer feedback on which vegetables they find most appetizing.
