Seed Saving Information

This family is self pollinating, crossing does not occur between members of the same species. Some of the seed saving in this family will consist of selecting tubers and roots, for example yacon & artichokes. With scorzonera and salsify you will want to harvest a lot of roots and select the best ones to return to the ground for seed. With all the other species it's best to collect seed from more than one plant and mix.

We sometimes have trouble with lettuce in our wet summers. Lettuce flowers rot and do not set seed if it is too humid or wet. Our answer has been to use the pollen cages we have for isolating the brassica flowers, and put plastic liners in them to keep the rain off the lettuces. At Seed Savers in Iowa I know they grow their seed lettuces in glass houses and that will happen in NZ with commercial lines of seed however it feel important that we continue to grow out our Institute seed in our own natural environment to keep it adapted to our conditions as far as possible.

Lettuce seed once harvested and dried to the crunchy stage (if necessary in the greenhouse) is easy to rub into a powder and winnow to clean the seed. Be aware though that the powder the seed cases turn to is very fine and like dust goes into your lungs. We wear scarves over our noses and mouths when processing lettuce seed. It's the worst of fine dust!