Landrace Gardening (Joseph Lofthouse)
A landrace is a genetically-diverse, promiscuously-pollinating, and locally-adapted crop. Landraces are loved for producing stable yields under changing growing conditions.
Landrace crops arise by survival of the fittest and farmer preference for reliability in tough conditions. Plants that don't survive long enough to make seeds die out. The strongest plants survive. The arrival of new pests, new diseases, or changes in cultural practices, or in the environment may harm some individuals in a landrace population. With the high diversity many plant families do well, regardless of changing conditions.
Landrace crops frequently grow under subsistence level conditions without costly inputs such as herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, or weeding. For gardens with extreme growing conditions or pests, landrace crops may provide the only reliable harvests.
Crops grew as landraces since time immemorial, except during recent decades, when growing food was ceded to mega corporations.
About 60 years ago, an industrial model of growing food began to separate people from traditional food production methods. Far away experts
replaced people's own understanding and insight. People generally stopped growing their own food and seeds, and became cogs in a global corporate machine. The separation is pervasive.
At the beginning of a landrace development project, I cull sparingly. I want anything that can make seed to contribute its genetics to the gene-pool. In later years, I select more for productivity and taste. [...] I collected seed and replanted. [...]
I think of the third year of a landrace breeding project as the magical year. The first year, the totally maladapted plants die out. The second year, the survivors cross-pollinate. The third year their offspring are the best crossed with the best. Even without high crossing rates, the third year plants have two years of local adaptation and selection for greatness.
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Spinach converted easily to landrace growing. I planted a number of varieties of spinach next to each other and culled the plants that were slow growing or quick to bolt. About 4 of the 12 varieties were suitable for my garden. I allowed them to cross-pollinate and set seed. A few years later, someone gave me a packet of spinach seeds. I planted it next to my locally-adapted landrace. The imported spinach went to seed at 3 inches (8 cm) tall. The landrace spinach had leaves a foot long.
Freelance vs. Industry
Landrace gardening is about localized freelance food production, seed saving, and plant breeding. Throughout history, balance has shifted between small-scale food production and centralization. We are in an era where centralization has run its course. People are returning to decentralized food production. Locally-adapted seeds play a vital role in healthy food systems.
Turnip-rooted parsnip
I took the slow and steady approach with parsnips. My soil becomes hard by fall. They were difficult to dig. They were breaking off. Most of the food value remained in the ground. We started with a turnip-rooted parsnip, allowing it to naturally cross-pollinate with a more vigorous, longer-rooted parsnip. Then we re-selected for the turnip-rooted shape. I'm unlikely to introduce long-rooted parsnips again. I don't want to lose the current shape.
In my experience planting these genetically-diverse crops, they cross-pollinate and undergo survival of the fittest selection. They breed themselves. My main function is to stay out of the way. I plant at an appropriate time, and irrigate or weed as needed. An entire chapter of this book is devoted to exploring promiscuous pollination.
I do not coddle plants. If a plant struggles with disease, or pests, I cull it. I do not try to save it with pesticides, sprays, herbicides, labor, or treatments. If I pull it early, then it doesn't shed pollen into the rest of the patch. I explore the nuances of this approach in the chapter on pests and diseases.
Tomatoes
A lot of gardeners put huge amounts of labor and materials into growing tomatoes. They keep them off the soil. They trellis and prune them for airflow. They spray constantly. I grow tomatoes sprawling on the dirt. I ignore them. If a variety can't handle the local pests and diseases, or my hands-off methods, then I don't want it in my garden. I prefer to grow locally-adapted varieties that can handle the growing conditions exactly as they are today.
It is much easier for plants to modify their genetics than it is for me to change growing conditions. So I do not add fertilizer to my fields, nor try to modify the soil. If I fertilized, I would be selecting for plants that require fertilizer.
Transplanting is often detrimental to plants, so I grow by direct seeding if at all possible. Direct seeded crops grow much more robustly and reliably than transplants. The ability to survive and thrive when direct seeded is high on my list of selection priorities.
I dislike weeding. By not weeding, I select for plants that out-compete the weeds. When they get into a garden where people weed, they thrive. A number of years in a row, I lost my carrots to weeds. The carrots were slow to germinate. They grew slowly. The weeds overwhelmed them. I saved seed from the few plants that survived the weeds for several years in a row. The offspring became robust, quick-growing plants. I apply that sort of out-competing weeds strategy to every crop that I grow. I typically weed one time, shortly after germination.
Weeds provide significant food to me. It might be hard to tell, by watching me work in the garden, if I forage, or if I weed. Many of the weeds go directly from hand to mouth.