Seeds are the foundation of all gardening, they contain everything needed within their tiny shells to create beautiful and sustaining growth. They are also incredibly complex and contentious resource within the global food community, as we are currently fighting to retain biodiversity and our autonomy as food producers and cultivators from large, international corporations. Below are some basic terms often used when talking about seed politics, and following are pages on starting transplants from seeds and saving your seeds.
The definition of an heirloom or heritage seed varies from person to person, company to company. It often indicates that the seed has been valued by a family, tenderly and carefully preserved, and handed along from generation to generation. The variety of seed has had a long history, rather than being a newer development in the commercial seed industry.
Hybrid seeds are the first generation offspring of two distant and distinct parental lines of the same species. Hybrid seed is also known as "high response" seed. These seeds require fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and lots of water to achieve their high yields. Seeds taken from a hybrid may either be sterile or more commonly fail to breed true, meaning they are not suitable for saving.
In the past, no reputable seed producer would ever release a new variety in an unstable state. It would be bred and selected for years until it would come true-to-type from saved seed. However, starting around WW II, the definition of the term has changed in its implication and application. Most seed companies are now motivated by profit and so they intentionally release unstable, hybrids whose exact parentage are guarded trade secrets. Since these seeds are not suitable for saving, the farmer or gardener must buy new seeds each season.
Open-pollinated varieties are the traditional varieties that have been grown and selected for their desirable traits for millennia. They grow well without high inputs because they have been selected under organic conditions.
These varieties have better flavour, are hardier, and have more flexibility than hybrid varieties. Breeders cannot manipulate complex characteristics such as flavour as easily as they can size and shape. These seeds are dynamic, they mutate and adapt to the local ecosystem, as opposed to modern hybrids, which are static.
Commercial breeders lack the incentive to produce new open pollinated varieties from which farmers could save seed and replant.
GMO is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. This process provides a class of legal ownership protection, often allowing corporations to own the DNA of specific organisms.
Certified Organic refers to products grown under guidelines as mandated by a third party certification organization. To become certified, growers and processors must keep very detailed records, adhere to the standards, have soil and facilities tested, keep copious records, and pay certification fees.
Many small growers are ethical and sustainable gardeners but either cannot afford the fees associated with the USDA's certification process or take issues with the standards. Some believe that the term “organic” when used as a marketing strategy is not strict enough. The best way to decide what terms mean is to talk with your producers, and go visit their gardens or farms.
Adapted from Primal Seeds, Hybrid vs. Open Pollinated , http://www.primalseeds.org/hybrid.htm and Victory Seeds, Glossary of Botanical Terms , http://www.victoryseeds.com/information/glossary.html#open-pollinated%20seed