Anthroposophical idea on sowing taters

[lieven]

I've been reading some notes about a weekend in Warmonderhof, the Netherlands, 1994, named 'Zaadteelt & Zaaitijd' (Seed crop & sowing time).

This guy, 70-year-old Georg W. Schmidt, quotes Rudolf Steiner on taters: 'We should plant potato eyes, not potatoes' - apparently because of the watery, moon-like nature of this tuber. Oh, well, I thought.

But just then Schmidt continues (I translate & summarize) 'If we want to regenerate & repower potatoes, we should sow them. Starting potatoes from true seeds brings in the cosmic influences again. Our sown potatoes are stronger than others: no attacks from bugs or late blight.'
Does that sound familiar?

[Tom Wagner]

Music to my ears!

[Tom Wagner]

www.sunbowfarm.org/cosmic-influences-on-agricultural-processes.php

One may wish to read up on the Sunbow Farm and the cosmic influences. I have visited this farm a few years ago.

wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA011/English/RSPI1959/GA011_index.html

Those unfamiliar with Steiner may wish to browse the Cosmic Man. It seems a bit far out there, but it is interesting reading.

The thing about potatoes having cosmic influences eludes me a bit, I am afraid, but the fact that potatoes can be re-born again from TPS is a romantic ...yet workable influence we should explore.

[DarJones]

The most important phrase I've yet read about plant breeding is:

"You can't breed what isn't there."

Inferring that the genes must be present in order to select for them.

DarJones

[canadamike]

I certainly love the idea of growing from seeds, Thanks to Tom I've been doing it for years.

However, before Tom and I visited France in 2009, I had a whole field of heirlooms and Wagner's new potato clones started by seeds. The new blight mutation killed all the field but 5 new Wagner clones.

I have my serious doubts about the ''not having late blight'' thing.

They sure are healthier and more productive for many years, let's not forget they are virus free in the first generation ( or almost, depending on the soil) and that virus accumulation comes with the years.

Not having blight might be because of luck, sometimes it passes by and land close but not everywhere, it happened in 2009, my main field of tomatoes in Ottawa was killed but other ones growing west of it, protected by a building, were perfectly healthy.

So, for me it goes like this

For Jessica Simpson: it's all in the jeans...
For blight resistance: it's all in the genes

[Tom Wagner]

The most important phrase I've yet read about plant breeding is:

"You can't breed what isn't there."

Inferring that the genes must be present in order to select for them.

Darrel, I might add that "You can't breed fecundity if it ain't there."

Increasing the broad base diversity of potatoes by collecting named varieties from around the world...collecting wild species...collecting breeding clones from years of cooperation with Universities and Federal organization....and then breeding those calamitous clones which don't set berries with those that do....increases the female and male fecundity to breed more of what is there.

By having a world class germplasm of potatoes with high rates of fecundity in the right female flower...male pollen ratios....my fecund potato friends are second to none when it comes to breeding success.

Cosmic fecundity of potatoes?

Don't laugh....Howard Bloom’s “Lucifer Principle,” wrote about that which has driven human progress from the beginning:

"The nature scientists uncover has crafted our viler impulses into us: in fact, these impulses are a part of the process she uses to create. Lucifer is the dark side of cosmic fecundity, the cutting blade of the sculptor's knife. Nature does not abhor evil; she embraces it. With it she moved the human world to greater heights of organization, intricacy, and power."

"The Lucifer Principle" itself is a simple acknowledgement that in the natural world we take the bad with the good, often as the flip side of the good.

I must be uniquely qualified to find the good and the bad as a result of breeding fecund or fertile potatoes. I don't know if my work is Anthroposophical enough to breed a potato variety called "LUCIFER'S PRINCIPLE"

What color of potato would that be? Lucifer's color is blue, blue being the color of the sky and water representing that Lucifer is all around and within us. According to this belief...a potato born of SHE DEVIL AND BLUE DEVIL...hmm.....might be worth a fecund look.

Good thing I always say...."Lord, Help" a lot.

[bunkie]

fascinating tom!

[oxbowfarm]

When you delve into some of the teachings of Rudolf Steiner as related to agriculture you hit some odd things. Definitely coming at the issue from a unique perspective, more of a cosmic, mystical interpretation of the forces acting on crops. Almost a magical or mythical narrative for explaining what is happening on a farm throughout the cycles of a year. I really like and have tried to adopt the mindset that the farm is a living entity and must be treated as a whole, vs dividing everything down to its smallest components and treating each one as if isolated from the rest.

I am not a Biodynamic farmer, to really be one correctly you have to also be an Anthroposophist in my opinion. I have had a lifelong struggle with the issue of personal faith and spirituality, and find myself too much of a chronic skeptic to adopt a new faith, any more than I can continue to practice the faith I was raised in. But every Biodynamic farmer I've ever met has been a really incredible grower, with amazing crops and beautiful, inviting farms. They usually attribute that to Biodynamics principles and the idea that their farm is more cosmically active and tuned than other farms. The skeptic in me has to wonder if it is more the wholistic approach that Biodynamic takes and not the preps and rituals. I am actively trying to model that wholistic approach as much as I can, in my lazy apathetic agnostic way.

[canadamike]

The farm producing the best yogourt in this par of the country is biodynamic. The ol'man, that now have given it to the son, was a very practical austrian guy...no religion..he adopted the practices.

And it works. He never felt in his heart some ''cosmic'' relationship, he simply followed the ''ways'', admitting not understanding everything.

And it works beautifully. I moved and now live 300 miles away, have been travelling way further from his farm and his yogurt and Kefir are in the stores where I go...something must be well done.

[marches]

Feb 4, 2012 6:35:31 GMT -8 DarJones said:

The most important phrase I've yet read about plant breeding is:

"You can't breed what isn't there."

Inferring that the genes must be present in order to select for them.

DarJones

Kishmish vatkana (a grape) evolved powdery mildew resistance out of seemingly nowhere. It's Vitis vinifera (European grape) which is highly susceptible, yet when they genetically tested it they found new resistance genes and a unique response to powdery mildew and no other species in its ancestry.
Where Kishmish vatkana comes from would only have gotten powdery mildew recently too (it's an American disease).

So resistance can just develop over time, although it is usually through massive disease pressure selecting for it.

[DarJones]

The statement is still correct. To develop PMR would infer that genes were present perhaps from a similar disease that grapes encountered in the past. Truly "de novo" genes are rarer than hen's teeth. It can happen, especially when a species has a high transposon count, but don't rely on it to help your plant breeding. Plant viruses are another source of new genes that show up out of nowhere, but most of the time, they are deleterious instead of helpful.

[marches]

Aug 18, 2014 12:31:44 GMT -8 DarJones said:

The statement is still correct. To develop PMR would infer that genes were present perhaps from a similar disease that grapes encountered in the past. Truly "de novo" genes are rarer than hen's teeth. It can happen, especially when a species has a high transposon count, but don't rely on it to help your plant breeding. Plant viruses are another source of new genes that show up out of nowhere, but most of the time, they are deleterious instead of helpful.

Suppose you're right. Vitis sylvestris (wild European grape) is only beginning to show resistance to phylloxera now after about 200 years. That decimated it and it's now rare where once it was common and is less common than naturalized American species and escaped rootstocks.

[marches]

Although I think potatoes have enough resistant species to breed resistance to most things. Especially since most pests and diseases are native to the same range, not like vitis where species are worldwide and diseases and pests have evolved on certain continents and devastated vitis on other continents when plants began getting shipped worldwide.

Europe doesn't have that many Solanum species and most of them are native to the entire Northern hemisphere, so I don't think there is too much risk here. And nothing has got them yet.

[Tom Wagner]

We have more diversity in potatoes than we give them credit....looking over a world wide assortment of tuberosum/cultivars gives one hope. The diploids are full of opportunities and the andigena just as much. Lots of hope for the future!

[nathanp]

Another possibility is that phylloxera subtypes that are present today have evolved somewhat enough to give that grape a chance to express resistance.