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by Relentless (small \u201ci\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n We\u2019ve been brainwashed\u2026 conditioned by a $$$ driven techno-culture seemingly hell-bent on instilling the belief that only academically-trained and corporate-sponsored specialists are capable of breeding new and superior plants. My reply: \u201cWho died and left you boss?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n i have no degrees in horticulture, let alone plant breeding. But, i\u2019m breeding up an ecological storm and having a great time in the process. Not only that, but i\u2019m getting results<\/em>. i believe some of these results are as good or better than those from the multi-million dollar corporate breeding section and they\u2019re my creative vision, not GroupThought Inc. My budget is nil compared to theirs, wouldn\u2019t even show up on their budgetary radar screens. You know what? i like it that way because no one\u2019s looking over my shoulder, no one\u2019s saying this is where i should be heading, no one\u2019s saying \u201cyou\u2019re over budget,\u201d<\/em> no one\u2019s saying \u201cit\u2019s not commercial enough\u201d<\/em> or \u201cyou\u2019re taking too long\u201d<\/em> or \u201cit won\u2019t ship well\u201d<\/em> or \u201cit won\u2019t store well\u201d<\/em> or \u201cits taste is too intense for the mass market\u201d<\/em> or \u201cit\u2019s too tall\u201d<\/em> or it\u2019s not this or that or \u201cwhere are the results\u201d<\/em> or, or, or\u2026 i only have to satisfy myself, not some inhibited committee. Even this dang word processor program, compliments of corporate central, is attempting to inform me that the last sentence was too long. Hey, i\u2019ll make that decision! Plus, i don\u2019t have to lose sight of why i\u2019m doing this in the first place: i love the magic of being a real human being, part of the Whole<\/em> (more on that later), not part of the pressured System<\/em>.<\/p>\n If you enjoy working within the corporate, commercial-driven, results required to survive system, fine. It\u2019s simply not for me. i enjoy what freedoms we still have remaining in this whacked-out human-dominated world of GATTs and NAFTAs and WTOs and LSHFWCDTEBs (Let\u2019s See How Fast We Can Destroy The Earth Brigade). i couldn\u2019t work within a structure that makes all its decisions based on the bottom line or what its competition is up to<\/em>. i could care less about what the competition\u2019s up to<\/em> \u2013 we\u2019re on different planets.<\/p>\n And just who are the We<\/em> of the first sentence above? For me, We<\/em> are the gardeners, farmers, eco-growers, nature freaks, guys who don\u2019t own suits, women who don\u2019t either, humans who sweat and enjoy it \u2013 not in some pseudo-antiseptic gym or wrecking their knees on pavements but getting their sweat from nurturing the fertile soil as best we can. We<\/em> are often technological outcasts, rebels with an ethical clue, the instilled-with-wonder types, the radicals for sanity in an insane human world, the solitary converts attempting harmonious escape from the incessant, discordant machine, refugees within our own country, stationary nomads, lovers of peace, sufferers for all those living unloved. Still, We<\/em> remain a happy, joyous, mostly contented lot most of the time. You know who you are.<\/p>\n In essence, the We<\/em> are simply passionate beyond measure<\/em>. We<\/em> do not kowtow to the sinister corporate beat, the political hacks or the media machine. We<\/em> don\u2019t even choose the path less taken. We<\/em> take out our mental machete and hack out our own paths\u2026standardized and regulated society be darned. We<\/em> just couldn\u2019t be passionate within a corporate or institutionalized structure \u2013 it\u2019d be a contradiction in terms. We\u2019d <\/em>wither away.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a small-scale diversified gardener\/farmer\/eco-farmer, you\u2019re already on your way to being a plant breeder \u2014 even if you<\/strong> don\u2019t know it!<\/em> You may just not realize that the breeding is going on all around you yet and only requires, for starters, your observation, perseverance, patience and passion\u2026 plus the assist \u2013 always the assistance \u2013 of mom Nature.<\/p>\n Why? For one reason: you\u2019re not up in a tractor all-day or encased within other humongous fossil fuel burning whatevers, too removed from the teeming with life actual world to notice its transcendent magnificence. You\u2019re closer to the living soil, to ground zero. You actually touch and smell the sweet Earth during the growing season instead of being contaminated with the acrid smell of pesticides and diesel fumes. You\u2019re not just walking from a tractor to a pickup truck or doing research in glass or plastic-enclosed sanitized with pesticides facilities or other controlled<\/em> environments as devoid of diversity as imaginable\u2014you\u2019re not simply one petal of a flower. It\u2019s far more pleasurable and healthy smelling and touching the natural reality. And, it\u2019s more enjoyable being temporarily<\/em> out of control (i doubt that controlling everything is really our mission on Earth. What is your<\/em> mission? i have no idea but for me i can\u2019t escape the peaceful words of the hippie gardener Adam Turtle: \u201cWhat if the purpose of life is living? Then we can\u2019t miss.\u201d<\/em>), not contained by artificial and mechanical distractions so utterly rampant in our grating, in-your-face, whether you want it or not world!<\/p>\n To the point: If you\u2019re a natural gardener\/farmer, more of nature is going on around you. You\u2019re not a mono cropping this or that any more than you\u2019re a one tomato kind of grower. Thus, the more diversity \u2013 plant varieties, insects, soil organisms, varied weather conditions \u2013 the more chance of, well, chance crossings happening. Natural crosses. Then all you need to do with natural crosses is to let nature rip, observe and select what you\u2019re after and hopefully stabilize that wondrous evolutionary event that was presented to you. Then you\u2019re a plant breeder 101. Your only degree? Being a real human being, doing what has come naturally since Homo sapiens first caught the passion for selecting what the Earth has given you. This is one form of plant breeding. Look around your garden or farm and check out what nature is continually doing: changing, evolving, and surprising. Something wondrous may be lurking, patiently awaiting your recognition.<\/p>\n If i\u2019ve learned anything about plant breeding, it\u2019s to completely ignore the naysayers who parrot the party line: \u201cYou can\u2019t breed new plants, you\u2019re not trained, you\u2019re no expert, what do you know?!\u201d<\/em> Blah, blah, blah. Neither were all our ancestors who developed some puny wild grass eons ago and got what we call corn today. Not teams of specialists with million dollar budgets, huge research facilities, 30,000+ growouts of a single species (!) but individuals with small plots and plenty of passion and perseverance. i\u2019m discovering ways to overcome the massive growouts the pros utilize. Mass growouts can produce results but they\u2019re not the only way to obtain what you, the passionate breeder, desire<\/em>. Keep reminding yourself that you\u2019re not in competition with the Big Boys and Girls<\/em>; our agendas are completely different. Refer back to the We<\/em> mentioned before for each of us has another advantage: each one of us sees and feels the world with different eyes and unique senses, with what i can only call creative, passionate innocence<\/em>. Use this to the Earth\u2019s advantage, which is to your advantage as you are that one wondrous unrivaled aspect of your world. No one is like you, no one is you. Bask in your singular uniqueness. i can\u2019t help but wonder how well our professional plant breeders would do today if they had to start from scratch with the wild form of zea mays? First, I doubt their corporate sponsors would see the possibilities and second, it would take far too long to get a return on investment: \u201cDead end, not worth the time or $$$. We need results quick-like; we\u2019re not running a gambling casino here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n i don\u2019t see breeding as a specialized, compartmentalized, sanitized, pasteurized, homogenized subject. i think it really helps to be more renaissance-like, open to all of your surroundings, connected to the Earth\u2019s diversity and wonders at minimum and the Universe and beyond for maximum beginnings<\/em>. As Buckminster Fuller said: \u201cIf humans were meant to be specialists, they\u2019d have been born with one eye.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Reconnection to the Whole \u2013 allowing oneself to not only realize the Whole exists but that you are one aspect of the Whole. Your doings and not doings affect it as does the Whole affect you. We\u2019re not outside the Whole. What you choose to do has an effect on that Whole, however minute. i don\u2019t want to dig myself into a hole, i want to be engulfed by yet part of the Whole.<\/p>\n i look at it this way: those who pull a flower apart, break it down into all its possible miniscule parts, analyze it for years and then attempt to know it find out (and lose sight of the real reality) that they can\u2019t put that wondrous flower back together again \u2013 the Humpty Dumpty syndrome. They\u2019ve long ago lost sight of the flower itself, let alone the Whole. i think of this person as a standardized scientist. They\u2019re everywhere in Technoland whether they\u2019re called scientists, technologists, MDs, computer programmers, etc. \u2013 specialists who can\u2019t see the Whole from its parts they\u2019ve ripped apart. Forever locked into one language, one \u201creligion,\u201d one eye, one prison of their own choosing.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the one who looks at the flower as a miracle, who at first observes<\/em> the flower from afar and eventually decides close up<\/em> is better. But then one moment of pure light zaps and surrounds you and you discover<\/em> (it was always there just awaiting one\u2019s reawakening) it\u2019s best to become<\/em> the flower, see the Universe within that flower and as that flower relates<\/em> to the Universe. To touch the cosmos surrounding it\u2026 never considering tearing it apart because you know it\u2019s sacred and can never be reassembled. This person i would call a miracle amidst the machine age<\/em>. The techno-culture would no doubt call this person a throwback. Think of a throwback as our ancestors who developed corn.<\/p>\n i strive for the latter within this plastic, asphalted<\/em>, polluted, disconnected, ever more digitalized synthetic world. It isn\u2019t always easy in this one size fits all system, as we well know. (Yes, i do appreciate much of modern existence until it believes it can disconnect from, destroy at will and outmaneuver nature. That\u2019s where i part company.)<\/p>\n Attempting as best i can to live this way, reconnecting with the Whole, has, to use corporate speak, produced and procured positive results<\/em>. The two dozen plus breeding projects currently underway at the EcoWeb not TM<\/sup> (my term for our farm\u2019s diversified ecosystem that can connect with thousands of other diversified ecosystems until the whole Earth is once again connected in a healthy way \u2013 a revolutionary act indeed!) are demonstrating to me<\/em> that such a natural philosophical outlook works, even without the piece of paper from the System. i\u2019m getting results<\/em> (and yes, failures) in the eyes of the System<\/em>. But the failures really aren\u2019t failures. They\u2019re evolving opportunities. i\u2019ve learned more from the failures than the successes. If something i\u2019ve bred is of interest to others, fine \u2013 i\u2019ll use the money to have more time at the EcoWeb and attempt to breed, with the assist of Nature, more evolutionary magic.<\/p>\n Successes: new and unique chile peppers, new tomatoes (one appears to be a potential winner<\/em> even for the mass market though I only breed for myself and family and friends, the pleasure it gives and in hopes that I can remain an integral aspect of the Whole), an electric orange chard, a bi-colored bachelor button, a Magic Pumpkin, a new fragrant sweet pea and many more. I\u2019m using many systems<\/em> of breeding including the \u201clet \u2018er rip\u201d<\/em> natural cross method to hand-pollination and my own hybrid system of mass chaos interaction \u2013 utilizing many species and varieties of my choosing<\/em> (and whatever Nature throws into the mix). This seems critical: your imagination, your creative input, your choices, working with, not against, Nature.<\/p>\n So i\u2019ve become a fanatical plant breeder sans degree from the System<\/em>. No one\u2019s tried to arrest me yet for impersonating a plant breeder. i realize my degree comes from a higher authority\u2014my world, not the System\u2019s<\/em> structured prison. It\u2019s a retro-revolutionary creative act. And it\u2019s an evolutionary part of the whole scheme of things of which i\u2019m a minor but integral part that doesn\u2019t want to be pulled apart and analyzed like that flower in a scientist\u2019s lab or statistically lumped in some convenient camp for the demographers who are trying to sell a new toothpaste or forever polled for the latest idiotic opinion. Creatively, it allows me to dream and scheme<\/em> of a nirvana tasting tomato, a glowing delicious chard, a beautiful fat chile that reaches skyward to touch the sun, a no-beef OP tomato and an exquisite sky-blue cleome. In reality, i\u2019m well on the path i\u2019ve hacked out for myself to all the above except for the cleome \u2014 that\u2019ll take a while longer. \u201cYou may say I\u2019m a dreamer, but I\u2019m not the only one.\u201d<\/em> Thanks John.<\/p>\n Be observant, be one with the whole, be persistent, patient, happy, dream a lot, get your hands dirty, sweat, love a lot, try this, try that, make use of all 6 senses \u2013 especially your 6th sense, go for your creative urges \u2013 not what the pseudo-world of contaminated mass think-alikes is attempting to permanently imprint into your skull so you\u2019ll graciously surrender and become a consuming drone. In short, be what you\u2019ve always wanted to be: lovingly, wildly passionate beyond measure \u2013 and just do it. No corporation or institution can compete with that.<\/p>\n Our ancestors did it\u2026 so can you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n