When the Covid-19 pandemic was declared in March, the fate of this year’s mobile seed cleaner tour was very uncertain. We knew we wouldn’t be able to bring it to bustling markets to connect with farmers and consumers in the same way we did in 2019, but we hoped we Read more…
Humans have likely been munching on carrots for over 5,000 years, so it’s no surprise that an abundance of resources have been developed to guide beginner and advanced carrot breeders alike through all stages of the iconic root vegetable’s life cycle. A long-storing orange Nantes-type carrot with excellent flavour and Read more…
Craig LeHoullier aka ‘North Carolina Tomato Man’ is the plant breeder behind the F3 teensy family dwarf tomato breeding population that we are trialling in the 2020 Citizen Seed Trial (CST). Craig is also the co-founder of the Dwarf Tomato Project and is responsible for 90 (and counting) tomato varieties, Read more…
Watermelon can be a bit of a difficult crop to grow in Canada… unless you’re growing Blacktail Mountain, that is! Originally bred by Glenn Drowns as a young lad at his home in Idaho, this year’s seeds came to the Citizen Seed Trial from Sal Dominelli of Gabriola Island’s Sweet Read more…
Mel and I caught up on a recent sunny afternoon over some cold lemonades on the sprawling UBC Farm… just kidding, this interview happened over Zoom like everything else during these crazy times. Nevertheless, Mel’s passion for the project and sense of humour came through clearly. Mel is the Field Read more…
Our first Citizen Seed Trial farmer interview comes to us from Hank Keogh of Avoca Seed in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Hank bred the Dazzling Blue kale variety being used as the control variety in the 2020 Citizen Seed Trial. It was also featured in the 2016 BC Seed Trials and Read more…
Welcome to the Citizen Seed Trial 2020 blog series! This year we’d like to introduce you to the people behind the Citizen Seed Trail project, from plant breeders and seed producers to the facilitators who make the project possible. We’ll be (virtually) sitting down with a number of these people Read more…
Chris ThoreauMarch 2020 This March I joined USDA carrot breeder Dr. Phil Simon and his crew from University of Madison-Wisconsin in Southern California to dig and evaluate some 700 plots of carrot trials as part of his USDA-ARS carrot breeding program. This is the second time I have participated in Read more…
After a winter of design and fabrication we are excited to be taking the mobile seed cleaner out on tour across BC. We have stops in the Lower Mainland, Okanagan, Kootenays, and Vancouver Island scheduled from July through September 2019. Check out the full tour list here. We have also Read more…
One aspect of the mobile seed trailer I have not yet written a lot about is our collaboration with UBC engineering students to design and build a seed cleaner for us. They are working from existing concepts to build a seed cleaner which is, Effective at cleaning a wide range Read more…
Today we tested the Clipper! I happened to get some wheat seed form a grower in Chilliwack this week which was perfect timing for getting the Clipper running. The test runs are important for getting to know the machine and produce effective training manuals. It also helps us upgrade things Read more…
Today we did our first test run of the Clipper Seed Cleaner in the Mobile Seed Trailer! This is a big achievement as this is the biggest scale piece of equipment we have for seed processing. With this step done we will start producing instructional videos and documents for the Read more…
In partnership with USC Canada through The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, COG is excited to open registration for Canada’s only intermediate-level Organic Vegetable Seed Production e-learning certificate! This 22-week program runs April 8th – November 1st, 2019 (with a summer break from July 9th – September 2nd). Read More Below… We’re also happy to announce the Read more…
Building a Zig-Zag Seed Cleaner 31 December 2018 Chris Thoreau chris@farmfolkcityfolk.ca Download pdf article here For future updates check out the Zig-Zag Seed Cleaner Blog here. Note: This machine was fabricated as one piece of our mobile seed cleaning unit which contains numerous pieces of seed cleaning equipment including a Read more…
We’re happy to share this press release from the Ministry of Agriculture about the recent project funding for FarmFolk CityFolk’s Seed Security Program! —– The people involved in the first stage of growing fresh and healthy B.C. vegetables are getting some help to increase the amount of local food grown Read more…
Over the past few months we have been designing and sourcing materials for our mobile seed cleaner – a collection of mid-scale seed cleaning equipment for use by local seed growers and farmers. The design is based on an existing trailer at the Organic Farm School in Washington State. The Read more…
This year we have taken a bit of a different approach with setting up the isolation tent for the Carrot Seed Project by erecting the tent as late as possible before flowering. This is done in the hope that the carrot stalks will be strengthened by having more wind exposure Read more…
At the end of May we celebrated the UN International Day for Biological Diversity! This day also marked the grand launch of the Community Seed Network which is an initiative of The Seed Savers Exchange, USC Canada and others that came together to create an online platform for resources and information on Read more…