Tierra Sagrada Seed Library

What is Seed Saving?

Seed saving is the process of growing and harvesting seeds in a way that ensures that seeds reliably match their parent plant(s) over multiple generations. 

 Why is seed saving important? 

Seed saving allows for the reliable supply of genetically diverse crop varieties. The more varieties of crop we have the more likely it will be for crop varieties to exist which have beneficial characteristics such as pest resistance, drought tolerance or great taste. When plant varieties cross pollinate, we risk the possibility of losing certain beneficial characteristics. For this reason, it is important to keep a supply of seeds that reliably match their parent plant. So long as we have a reliable stock of seeds that we know the characteristics of we can experiment with cross pollinating different varieties to produce new plant varieties without the risk of losing beneficial characteristics.

Are cross pollinated plants bad?

No, cross pollinated plant species are not inherently bad! Cross pollination is a completely natural process that ensures plant offspring variability. However, when plant varieties cross pollinate, sometimes certain beneficial characteristics are lost. Keeping a supply of saved seeds ensures that we always have access to those beneficial characteristics even if they have not been retained by a cross pollinated descendant population.