A seed is made of three parts. The skin is provides protection for the seed, the cotyledon supplies the nutrition for the seed to germinate and become a photosynthetic plant, and the embryo carries the genes of the seed, determining what kind of plant it will become.
When a seed falls from a tree or a plant and lands in the soil, or when we take a seed and plant it, the seed finds a place to grow. With the right environment, a seed will open. Enzymes in the seed will send roots down into the soil, and the stem of the plant will grow upwards, pulling its leaves up with it. In this process, the seed becomes a larger body. A stalk, a vine, a root, leaves, a flower, a fruit. By the time the seeds own nutrient supply is exhausted, it will be able to create its own energy through processes of photosynthesis, and from taking up the
needed nutrients and water through its roots.
It is always a bit magical to watch a little plant emerge from
the seed and from the soil, and then to watch it grow.
Certain seeds have close relationship with humans. It is a reciprocal relationship. We disperse them in exchange for the fruit they provide us. We plant seeds and give them the necessary conditions for them to grow. We water them, weed around them, and eventually will get to harvest their fruit and seed. The fruit we will eat, the seed we will plant again.
The relationship between humans and certain seeds has been a long one, so long that we have influenced each others characteristics. The seed and its role in agriculture, has made us a species that can stay in one place. It has allowed us to grow towns and cities, as well as populations. We have bred the seed so that it is more productive, and so the fruit it provides tastes better and is easier to harvest. We have done this by a process called selective breeding: we replant only the biggest, best seeds from the biggest, best plants, and eventually all plants are bigger and better. Through the course of thousands of years, humans have bread modern day fruits, vegetables and grains from plants very unlike what they are today. Corn, for example, used to be a small wheatlike grain called teosinte. The peach was once the size of a berry, the watermelon the size of a grape, the banana a small green fruit with huge seeds. The brassica family , which includes cabbage, kale, brussel sprouts and broccoli, was once just one plant called the wild mustard plant. Each brassica was bred through a different method – kale from choosing plants with the biggest leaves, broccoli from choosing plants with bigger buds, and so on. The farmers from ages past started the processes of breeding the seeds needed for the world to feed more than 8 billion people.
Now, we can change the genetics of seeds much more quickly. With genetic engineering, we can create seeds that express agriculturally desirable traits. These include resistance to herbicides, drought and insects, delayed ripening, and higher yields. Seeds produced through genetic engineering are called GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms. It is unknown if GMOs are bad for human health, but it is likely that they are bad for planet health. For example, the most common GMO seeds grown in the United States are those that are resistant to herbicides. This allows farmers to apply herbicide to entire fields of GMO corn and soy. Not only is this application creating a new class of herbicide resistant “super weeds”, but it also results in soil compaction, the killing of beneficial soil microbes, the exhaustion of soil nutrients, and runoff into nearby bodies of water.
The practices of modern day farming have allowed the human population to grow exponentially. We are able now to feed a world of 8 billion. But these practices have also created an environment where risks are high for food surpluses to turn into food shortages.
Our current farming practices are, among other things, leading to a severe loss of genetic seed diversity. Seventy five percent of the diversity in food crops has been lost over the last 100 years and almost 60% of the total consumed calories in the world now come from just three crops: corn, rice and wheat. When we lose seed diversity, we also lose dietary diversity, which is an important factor for human health. It is likely that we are losing other things as well, including the resiliency that genetic diversity creates. It is possible that we are losing seeds with genes that would be helpful in the future, such as genes that create resistance to drought or flooding or high temperatures. We may be laying the groundwork for future disasters. Monocropping, which is the common practice of growing just one crop year after year on the same land, strips the soil of nutrients. This makes chemical fertilizers necessary, and makes plants more susceptible to disease.
Seeds hold our past, and they also hold our future. In the 1980s scientists began to get concerned over the loss of plant genetic diversity. They began the work necessary to ensure the future of seed diversity but laying the groundwork for the creation of seedbanks, or places where seeds can be stored and protected long term. Today more than 1700 seed banks exist around the world. There are seedbanks in Brazil, Ethiopia, the Philippines, and even the arctic. The Svalbard Seed bank, located on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago north of Norward, was opened in 2008. Its purpose is to ensure that seeds are protected even if all other seedbanks fail. It is made to stand the test of time but already is being threatened by warming climates which are causing the permafrost it is built in to melt.
“The seed in its essence is all of the past evolution of the Earth, the evolution of human history, and the potential for future evolution. The seed is the embodiment of culture because culture shaped the seed with careful selection.”
-Vandana Shiva
Barley has a global production over 150 million tons (it’s the fourth most grown cereal crop). Adapted to marginal environments, barley is grown as a risk aversion crop.
Used as a cover crop in the US during winter, rapeseed helpts to prevent soil erosion and suppresses weeds. Rapeseed oil is also called Canola oil.
Scroll over the seeds to learn more
Soybeans were first domesticated around 7000 BC in China. It was considered sacred for its beneficial effects in crop rotation.
Rice provides more than one-fifth of the calories consumed by humans worldwide. Many varieties of rice are grown, and culinary preferences vary by region.
Although corn is the most produced crop in the world, most of it is used for biofuel, animal feed and corn products, such as corn syrup.
Grown on more land area than any other food crop, wheat is the second most produced cereal after maize. World production of wheat has tripled since 1960, partly due to its use in processed foods.
THE SOIL
