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Local man uses seeds to protect genetic diversity

Story by Dana Davis

9:08 a.m. Friday, June 16, 2006

In the backyard of a Hartford Kansas home, you'll find Ron Thuma carefully tending his garden.

But this isn't just any garden and Ron isn't your average gardener.

Ron is a seed saver. Seed savers grow and save rare or heirloom seeds.

"We’re trying to keep alive all the old varieties that are family heirlooms because so many people as generations progress, if someone doesn't garden then that seed that was passed down from member, to member, to member, dies and that plant no longer will ever exist again,” he said.

Ron is a member of Seed Savers Exchange. The nonprofit organization exchanges seeds with its members. It's headquartered in Iowa and Ron said they currently maintain about 25,000 varieties of vegetables.

Ron's been a member of Seed Savers Exchange since 1978, starting with several varieties of vegetables that were raised by his grandmother.

“There's a shallot, shallots are an exotic we think today. But grandma called them nest onions and the top setting onions which are green onions. They never bulb. They have top sets for seeds instead of bulbs,” he said. “They were always a part of my life. They go back until mid 1850s when our families first came to Kansas. They were brought here from other places and who knows how far back they go."

Ron saves seeds in a variety of different ways. For example – garlic - he'll dig out of the ground and set them out to dry. With other plants, he'll snip off the tops and shake out the seeds.

Ron grows several hundred different varieties of vegetables every year.

“Right how my biggest thing that I grow is beans,” he said. “Currently I've got 138 varieties of beans that I maintain and of those I grow out about a third each year."

Those beans include the rare Sea Farer, the original navy bean, Jackson Wonder, a red lima bean and the yellowish Tiger Eye.

Ron said it's important to care about the diversity of foods.

“If we don't keep the genetic diversity going, we loose the potential to solve the problems as we develop plant diseases,” he said. “The Irish potato famine is the perfect example. That was because Ireland grew only one variety of potato and something developed, a disease which wiped out the crop and about wiped out the people. Growing many different kinds of potatoes there will always be some that survive."