Some links about seeds

As promised, here are some links about various seed topics. I am putting them up for my class, but they are generally useful. I brought these sites together to help you understand some of the terms you see in seed catalogs, like treated seed, organic seed, and the "safe seed pledge."

Various governmental and NGO websites on different seed topics:

http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsg/seed/facts.htm (Facts from the US Department of Agriculture about naming and labeling varieties of seed) This explains what is entailed in giving a plant variety, or   cultivar, a name and selling it under that name.

http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsg/seed/treated.pdf (Requirements under The Federal Seed Act for labeling   treated seed)

   

http://www.seedquest.com/forum/s/SundstromChip/0.htm (Interview with Chip Sundstrom of the California Crop Improvement Association about organic certification of seed)

http://www.ccof.org (Site of the California Certified Organic Farmers, includes information on organic farming in California and links to the federal organics law)

http://www.panna.org/resources/ge.html (Pesticide Action Network North America resources on issues related to genetic engineering that include many PANNA fact sheets and many links to other resources.)

http://www.gene-watch.org/programs/safeseed/sourcebook.html (A list of seed companies that subscribe to the Safe Seed Pledge, with links to them) The Safe Seed Pledge says that the company won't knowingly sell bioengineered seeds.

http://www.ecobooks.com/authors/vavilov.htm (A history of the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry, which was the world’s first seedbank, and an explanation of Vavilov’s “centers of origin” of cultivated crops. This page includes links to related websites and some of the links within this site (to other sites) are broken, but there is enough of interest on the site itself to be worth looking.