Collaborative trial results are in! In 2021, we organized three trials for three different crops – indeterminate paste tomatoes, fresh market green bush beans, and jalapeño peppers. The goal of each trial was to grow well-known varieties side-by-side with newly released hybrid and open-pollinated varieties and freely share the results on our Seed Search and in this blog with growers, seed companies, and anyone else who is interested.

Salvaterra's Select Paste Tomatoes
Trial participant photos: Salvaterra Select paste tomatoes

Trial Methods

In January 2021, we canvased United States seed company offerings and selected varieties in each crop/market class that were standard open-pollinated and hybrid varieties. Additionally, we looked for newly bred and/or released open-pollinated and hybrid varieties to grow alongside them for comparison in these trials.

In February 2021, we invited farmers and gardeners across the United States to join our three trials via the SeedLinked platform by reaching out to those who have successfully been part of trials in the past as well as through an open link on our website. We had 92 growers join the indeterminate paste tomato trial, 113 growers join the fresh market green bush bean trial, and 73 growers join the jalapeño pepper trial. Each of these trials was a sub-set trial, where each participant was randomly assigned three varieties of a larger set to grow side-by-side and rate them. Also in this month, we mailed seeds and planting stakes to participants and made the trial active on the SeedLinked platform.

Collaborative Trial Participant Locations
2021 SeedLinked Collaborative Trial Participant Locations

During the 2021 growing season, trial participants were asked to grow the varieties provided to them. The participants logged in to SeedLinked on the web and/or mobile app and input the following data: planting, transplanting, first harvest, and last harvest dates, rate a variety of traits on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, provide general and trait-based written comments, and share photos of the varieties growing.

Trial Results

Once the trials were closed for entering data in December 2021, results were automatically calculated by the SeedLinked platform and shared with participants. You can view links to interactive trial results below. We highly recommend logging into your existing SeedLinked account or creating an account when viewing the results. This gives you the opportunity to filter results by hardiness zone to zero in on varieties that performed well in your location. Additionally, we recommend checking out our blog ‘Digging into SeedLinked Trial Results‘ to learn how to filter and view trial results.

2021 Indeterminate Paste Tomato Collaborative Trial Results

Varieties in this trial were: Amish Paste, Cipolla’s Pride, Emma’s Damn, Granadero, Marzito, Midnight Roma, Myona Paste, Plum Perfect, Pozzano, Salvaterra’s Select, and San Marzano. Trial participants rated the plants and fruit on the following traits on a scale of 1 to 5 throughout the growing season: Appearance, Disease Resistance, Earliness, Flavor, Germination, Vigor, Yield, and Overall. To view the interactive results on SeedLinked, click HERE.

Collaborative Trial Overall Results - Paste Tomatoes
2021 SeedLinked Indeterminate Paste Tomato Trial – Overall Results

2021 Fresh Market Green Bush Bean Collaborative Trial Results

Varieties in the trial were: Affirmed, Antigua, Celine, Crokett, Empress, Jade, Maxibel, Provider, and Provider Premium. Trial participants rated the plants and fruit on the following traits on a scale of 1 to 5 throughout the growing season: Appearance, Disease Resistance, Earliness, Flavor, Germination, Vigor, and Yield. To view the interactive trial results on SeedLinked, click HERE.

Collaborative Trial Overall Results - Green Beans
2021 SeedLinked Fresh Market Green Bush Beans Trial – Overall Results
Antigua beans and Provider Premium beans
Trial participant photo: (Left to Right) Antigua and Provider Premium fresh market bush beans

2021 Jalapeño Pepper Collaborative Trial Results

Varieties in the trial were: Black Magic, Early Jalapeño, El Jefe, Jalafuego, Jalapeño Travelers Strain, Jedi, Mild to Medium Jalapeño Grex, and Nadapeno. Trial participants rated the plants and fruit on the following traits on a scale of 1 to 5 throughout the growing season: Appearance, Canopy Closure, Disease Resistance, Earliness, Flavor, Germination, Spiciness, Vigor, and Yield. To view the interactive results on SeedLinked, click the HERE.

Collaborative Trial Overall Results - Jalapenos
2021 SeedLinked Jalapeño Pepper Trial – Overall Results
Nadapeno Jalapenos
Trial participant photo: Nadapeno Jalapeños

Appreciations

Thank you to all of the gardeners and farmers who participated in SeedLinked trials in 2021. With your help, we are creating more open-source data for how vegetable varieties perform across the United States. Additionally, we would like to thank all the seed companies that shared seeds with us for the trials. Thanks for being open to having your varieties tested by a wider audience of growers around the United States.

Published 12/30/21

Alright! You’ve finished entering reviews, adding photos and comments, and have completed your collaborative variety trial. Now you’re done being on SeedLinked until the next growing season. Not so quick! There are many benefits to staying engaged on SeedLinked. The primary reason is having access to collaborative variety trial results to help better inform your seed choices for the next growing season.

Did you know that you can access aggregated variety trial results immediately after you complete a trial on the web platform or app?

Trial results can help you pick what varieties to grow in the future. When it comes to picking a variety to grow, what is most important to you? Flavor? Disease resistance? Yield? Seeing photos of the variety growing? Reading comments from other growers? The beauty of SeedLinked trial results is that you can focus on what is important to you when determining what varieties to grow next year.

Ways you can view Trial Results on SeedLinked:

Trial results - what you can view

Want to dive into variety trial results? Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use trial results to the fullest on our web platform and apps.

Trial Results on the Web Platform

Let’s start with accessing collaborative variety trial results on the SeedLinked web platform. Log in to your account and navigate to the ‘Track’ tab at the top of the page and click on ‘Results’ on the grey sidebar on the left. You can sort your trial results by crop type or by year. Find a trial you’d like to view the results for and click on the blue ‘Results’ button to the right of the trial.

SeedLinked Web - how to access variety trial results

Congratulations! You are on the results page for a trial. Now, let’s take a look around at the ways you view results. First, you can select traits that you’d like to see ratings for. For example, if you are only interested in ‘disease resistance’ and ‘earliness’, you can select those traits and view only those aggregated ratings. Click on ‘Select Traits,’ select your traits, and hit ‘Save.’

SeedLinked Web - how to view vareity trial results by traits

Next, under the ‘Roles’ tab select who you’d like to see ratings from: gardeners, farmers, and/or trial managers and click ‘Save.’

SeedLinked Web - how to view variety trial results by grower type

Then you can select if you’d like to see results from everyone in the trial or only those reviewers in your hardiness zone. Click on ‘Hardiness Zone’ and either select ‘All’ or ‘My Hardiness Zone.’

SeedLinked Web - how to view results by hardiness zone

If you only want to see results for two or three varieties that were in the trial, you can remove varieties from the results by clicking ‘Select Varieties’ and choosing the varieties you’d like to see reviews for.

SeedLinked Web - how to view variety trial results by variety

When you completed your trial, you filled in a ‘Would you like to grow this again? Survey.’ You can view the results of that survey on the right side of the page. Be sure to scroll down if there are more than four varieties!

SeedLinked Web - how to view results of 'Would you grow this again?' survey

Lastly, if you want to look at the photos and comments reviewers shared about each variety, you can click on the camera or comment icon below the variety name. Be sure to like images and comments that are helpful to you! Ones with more likes rise to the top of the list and be featured on our Seed Search.

SeedLinked Web - how to view images and comments
SeedLinked Web - how to view images
SeedLinked Web - how to view comments

If you decide that you want to purchase seeds of a particular variety that was in a trial, you can click on the variety name in the ‘Would like to grow this again?’ survey results and this will take you to the SeedLinked Marketplace variety page where you can purchase seeds for that variety if they are available.

SeedLinked Web - how to go to the seed marketplace variety page

Trial Results on the App

Next, let’s shift gears and talk about viewing results on the SeedLinked App. First of all, be sure to download the app on your phone or tablet (Link to download for Android devices or iPhone/iPad).

Open the app, log in to your SeedLinked account, and navigate to the ‘Track’ tab at the bottom center of the screen. Click on ‘Results’ in the top right. On the Results page you can scroll down through all the results you have access to or you can filter them by crop or by year using the filters. Once you find the trial that you like to view results for, click on the trial.

SeedLinked App - how to view variety trial results

Welcome to trial results on the app! Now it’s time to dig into your results. You can toggle between seeing results from all trial participants or just those in your hardiness zone by toggling between ‘All Reviews’ and ‘Your Zone’ at the bottom of the screen. If there is a specific trait that is most important to you like yield, disease resistance, or flavor, you can filter the results by those traits by clicking on ‘Select Traits’ and selecting the traits you’d like to view and clicking ‘Apply.’

SeedLinked App - how to view variety trial results by trait

Next, you can access the graphs for the ‘Would you like to grow this again? survey’ that each trial participant took part in when they completed their trial. Click on the three dots to the right of a variety rating and click on the ‘Grow Again?’ icon. On this screen you can toggle between varieties by using the arrows next to the variety name.

SeedLinked App - how to view 'would you grow this again?' survey

Last, you can access photos and comments submitted by trial participants by clicking on the three dots to the right of a variety rating and clicking on either the ‘Images’ or ‘Comments’ icon to view them for each variety. You can toggle between variety images/comments using the arrows next to the variety name. Don’t forget to like images/comments that you feel are most helpful! Images/comments with the most ‘likes’ rise to the top of the list in results and on the Seed Marketplace.

SeedLinked App - how to view vareity trial images and comments

Thanks for learning all about the SeedLinked Trial Results! We encourage you to log in to your profile on the web or app and view the results for a collaborative variety trial you participated in on SeedLinked. We hope that the results feature gives you a way to find the right variety for you to grow next season.

Additionally, the results from over 350 collaborative variety trials run on the SeedLinked platform since 2018 are the foundation of our Seed Marketplace variety reviews. If you want to see overall ratings for varieties across geography, beyond your trial, search for and purchase seed on our Seed Marketplace.

If you have any ideas for how to visualize collaborative trial results, please share them with us at feedback@seedlinked.com We would love to hear from you!

Updated 11/16/22

Hooray! The SeedLinked Community Feed (aka ‘Feed) is now live on our web platform and mobile apps (Apple Store and Google Play). We invite you to log in and make a post today! This brand new SeedLinked feature is a culmination of years of work to help connect the dots between the Seed Explorer and Track tab on our platform.

On the Community Feed you can:

How you can participate in the Community Feed

Since the creation of the SeedLinked platform, we have envisioned adding the Feed to create a space for open discussion among gardeners and farmers to ask questions, share updates, make recommendations, and post photos. To begin with, each collaborative trial that you are part of on SeedLinked will have a feed where you can interact and learn from other trial participants. We invite you to be part of the conversation! 

How to make a post on the community feed
How to make a Community Feed Post on the SeedLinked App (iPhone).

Want a video tutorial of how to get started with the Community Feed before you dive in? We have you covered! Check out the walkthrough tutorial below.

Thanks for learning all about the SeedLinked Feed! We encourage you to log in, make a post, share photos, and like/comment on other people’s posts. When you participate in the feed, you are helping build community on SeedLinked!

With any new feature, we always expect a few issues here and there. If you find an issue with the Feed, please share it with us at feedback@seedlinked.com We would love to hear from you!

Happy posting and growing!

Published 8/13/21

For every collaborative trial and planting you review on SeedLinked, we ask you to add four distinct types of dates: planting date, transplant date (if applicable), first harvest date, and last harvest date. You may find yourself saying, “That is a lot of dates! Why are there so many? And why are adding them to trials and plantings useful?” 

What are days to maturity?

Before we dive into the why, let us start with one important definition related to dates that is oh so important to growers – days to maturity or days to harvest – which are used interchangeably. If you pick up any seed catalog or seed packet, you are going to see one of these in the growing description/notes for a variety.  

Days to Maturity (DTM) is the amount of time from planting a seed or transplant in the soil until the time its foliage or fruit is ready to harvest for eating. 

For direct-seeded crops (E.g., beans, corn, lettuce, carrots, beets) it is from the time they are direct seeded into the soil until the first harvest. For crops that are typically transplanted (E.g., onions, kale, cabbage, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, etc.), DTM is from the moment they are transplanted until the first harvest. That being said, some seed companies will specify on a seed packet if DTM is listed “from transplant” or “from seeding,” and may have text that says “subtract ‘X’ weeks from DTM if transplanting.”

Seed Packets with days to maturity in red.
Days to Maturity highlighted in red on three different seed packets.

Days to maturity are extremely helpful for growers. It helps serve as a guide for if a variety will mature in your growing zone. For example, if John has a garden in northern Minnesota (Zone 3b) and has a short growing season, DTM can tell him which tomato varieties are early maturing enough to grow and which ones will not reach maturity before his first frost.  

Additionally, DTM can help growers with succession planting and spacing out the harvest. For example, Ellen wants to space out cabbage harvest for her farm but wants to plant all the cabbages at the same time. She picks three varieties to plant that have DTMs of 60, 80, and 100 days to space out the harvest. 

Other Days to Maturity Considerations

There are two other important considerations related to days to maturity that are good to take into account – your latitude and when you plant. Let’s dive into the first one – your latitude. If you are further north in North America, you experience less daylight in the spring and fall and more daylight in the summer. Alternatively, if you grow in the southern part of North America, you experience more consistent amounts of daylight over the season and have especially less daylight in the summer compared to more northerly latitudes. The differing amount of daylight at various latitudes has an impact on DTM for crops that are more sensitive to light (the scientific term for this is photoperiod sensitive).

Now, let’s discuss the second factor – when you plant. If you plant early for a spring crop or later in the season for a fall/winter crop, oftentimes you must add days to the DTM because accumulated warmth (the scientific term is growing degree days or GDD) happens at a slower rate at those times of the year.

At SeedLinked, we aim to increase transparency around days to maturity and hone them in for growers in different growing zones and regions for each variety. This is why we ask folks submitting collaborative trial reviews to include up to four different dates.  

SeedLinked App - How to Add Dates
How to add dates to a trial or planting on the SeedLinked App.

Why should I add dates to my trial or planting?

Any date you add to a collaborative trial or planting helps build data for varieties on the SeedLinked Seed Marketplace and helps other growers (and seed companies) find the variety with the most accurate and correct days to maturity for their growing conditions. 

Here are some more examples of how recording dates for your collaborative trials and plantings can help inform growers in the future when they use the Seed Marketplace:

*Planting/transplanting dates help other growers determine the optimum planting date by region for a given variety.  
* First and last harvest dates inform growers on which variety is best for each season (E.g., optimum summer lettuce, spring carrots, or summer broccoli). 
* First and last harvest dates help determine harvest length for a given variety. Some varieties have a short harvest window (E.g., melons) while others have a much longer harvest window (E.g., kale). 
* Filter a search in our Seed Marketplace by days to maturity (see below). This can help you find a variety that is better adapted to your location.

Days to maturity on the SeedLinked Marketplace
Searching for beefsteak tomatoes with a DTM of 80 days or less using the DTM filter on the SeedLinked Marketplace.

How to Add Dates to a Collaborative Trial or Planting

Okay, now that you are sold on why to enter dates for your trials and plantings, we bet you are wondering how to add them. Lucky for you, we read your mind!
Check out this quick tutorial that covers how to add dates to any trial or planting on the SeedLinked web platform and app.

Tutorial: How to Add Dates to a Trial or Planting (Web/App)

Thanks, in advance for reviewing (and adding dates) collaborative trials and plantings on SeedLinked. We appreciate and value your participation. 

If you have any questions about adding dates to trials or plantings, please reach out to us at help@seedlinked.com 

Happy growing! 

Published 7/7/21

Have you ever wanted to add your favorite variety to a trial you’re part of? You are in luck! You can now add a check variety to any collaborative trial or planting you are involved in on SeedLinked.

Adding a check variety is a helpful tool that allows SeedLinked participants to rate their tried-and-true varieties for a crop side-by-side with the varieties in any trial or planting. For example, if you are part of a lettuce trial, you can include your favorite lettuce as a check variety that serves as a benchmark for what is good disease resistance, appearance, flavor, and yield for lettuce. At the end of the growing season, you’ll be able to see the trial results for the lettuces alongside your check, which can help guide you on what variety to purchase and grow in the future.

Why are check varieties are helpful?

Beyond that, adding check varieties to your trials and plantings increases the number of reviews on SeedLinked, which then powers our Seed Marketplace to help other gardeners and farmers learn from your experiences and find the best varieties for their growing conditions.  

So, how do I add a check to a trial or planting? Check out this tutorial that takes you through the process on the SeedLinked web-based platform and app.  

Tutorial: How to Add a Check Variety to a Trial or Planting

Additionally, if the check variety that you want to add to a trial or planting isn’t in the SeedLinked database you can now request to add them with our easy to use Google Form. Learn how to add varieties to SeedLinked with this tutorial. 

Tutorial: How to Add a Variety to the SeedLinked Database

If you have any questions about adding check varieties to trials or plantings, please reach out to us at help@seedlinked.com 

Happy growing! 

Did you know that you can review what you grow in your garden or on your farm on SeedLinked? 

In fact, when you review what you are growing on SeedLinked, you are helping other gardeners and farmers find the right seed for their growing conditions. Every rating you add on our platform powers our Seed Explorer and helps others learn from your experience and expertise. 

Review what you grow on SeedLinked
Review What You Grow on SeedLinked

How do you review what you grow on SeedLinked?

So, how do you review your garden/farm on SeedLinked? Check out the series of YouTube tutorials below that take you through the three-step process of searching for seeds, making wishlists, making plantings, and reviewing what you are growing.

Tutorial: How to Use the Seed Explorer, Compare Varieties, and Create a Wishlist

Tutorial: How to Make a Planting from a Wishlist

Tutorial: Reviewing Your Planting/Trial

If you have any questions about reviewing what you grow on SeedLinked, please reach out to us at help@seedlinked.com

Happy growing!

Renée Vassilos is The Nature Conservancy’s Agriculture Innovation Director. She manages TNC’s investments in early-stage agriculture technology companies that will scale regenerative agriculture production practices. Prior to joining The Nature Conservancy, Renée spent nearly a decade at John Deere, including several years based in Beijing, where she worked across corporate functions and geographies to build global market product strategies, design and manufacture equipment, and marketing and sales. Post-Deere, Renée led her consulting firm, Banyan Innovation Group, advising growth-stage agriculture technology start-ups and investors. Renée has a B.S. and M.S. in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and University of California, Davis respectively.

The SeedLinked Team

The next time you open the SeedLinked app you might be surprised. After lots of input from you all, we’ve completely revamped the trialing experience for mobile users. Now, you can now more easily find and do what you need to do when you need to do it!
 
The new app features you’ll encounter include a completely re-vamped trialing experience, direct trait comparison variety views, the ability to review your own garden or farm-grown varieties, as well as options to add a ‘check’ or reference variety with your reviewed varieties. We’re excited for the ways the ‘check’ variety will help you easily sort out your “tried and trues” from your “might be cool” variety choices. Do be sure to give it a try this season.

Download the new app and take a look around. If you only have a minute or two, check out the video walkthrough below! Even better, navigate directly to a specific feature you’re interested in learning about by clicking on the linked timestamp references below the video.

  • Download the Seedlinked App – 0:08
  • Login to Your Seedlinked Account – 0:31
  • Login to Your Seedlinked Account – 0:31
  • Explore Tab Overview – 0:58
    • Seed Search and Search Filters – 1:03
    • Creating and Adding to Wishlists – 2:15
    • Variety Comparison Tool –2:32
  • Track Tab Overview – 2:58
    • Entering Reviews – 3:21
    • Tracking Dates – 4:27
    • Adding Images – 4:45
    • Adding Comments – 4:56
    • Report Failure – 5:04
    • Completing Trial – 5:14
  • Offline App Use – 5:40
  • Offline App Use – 5:40
  • Results Tab Overview – 6:07
  • Feed Tab Overview – 6:27

Have ideas for how we can make our apps even better? Share your ideas with us at feedback@seedlinked.com.

Don’t forget to download the SeedLinked App for your mobile device today!

Ever wish you had a little more support when choosing new varieties to grow in your garden or vegetable operation? How about more opportunities for connection and interaction with others during COVID? Our new Seed Collection Experience is just the ticket to finding connection and fun new seed options this year!  

What is a Seed Collection Experience?

The Seed Collection Experience was born from our desire to offer a themed growing experience with guidance and curation from experts while providing a way for growers to come together to trial and experience a crop in community and grow exciting new varieties. To make the experience more fun, we’ve teamed up with some amazing food systems changemakers who have chosen the varieties in each collection based on their wide-ranging experience and preference. Many of the varieties in the Seed Collections have a personal connection to our curators – some of them long-time favorites – or have particularly interesting traits that our curators really wanted to share with participants. As a part of each Collection Experience, our partner curators will be offering their expertise to participants through a few live check-ins throughout the growing season. They’ll also be interacting with participants through our platform during the growing season so anyone can ask questions and hopefully learn a thing or two along the way.

What is the the Seed Collection Experience?

For instance, Lane Selman of the Culinary Breeding Network put together two exciting Collection Experiences: an Italian Roasting (Corno di Toro) Pepper collection, and a Leaf or Cutting Celery collection. Both Collections have close ties to the Culinary Breeding Network’s early days. Corno di Toro peppers were the focus of one of the first variety trials Lane organized, and the varieties included in her collection also outshone the pack in her taste tests with professional chefs. On the other hand, the Cutting Celery collection began with Portland-area Thai chefs giving feedback that they couldn’t find a local source of the cutting celery so key to flavoring some of their dishes. By partnering with those chefs and an array of farmers, Lane identified some winning varieties that showcase the diversity of this underappreciated herb. And now she wants to share them with you!

The Culinary Breeding Network leads a pepper tasting.
The Culinary Breeding Network leading a pepper tasting.

When you purchase a seed collection, you aren’t just buying seed for your garden – you are getting a shared experience. Regardless of where you are in the country, or your personal level of growing expertise – this is a way to weave the story of your farm or garden into that of the bigger food and seed system. As a participant, you’ll join hundreds – possibly thousands – of others across the country in a learning experience that also gives back to the broader seed community by providing valuable performance data through your participation and variety reviews. Using your SeedLinked account you’ll track your progress from planting to harvest, rate the different varieties along the way, and share results as you go. 

SeedLinked’s platform is also launching a social feed for growers beginning in 2021, so participants can easily interact and communicate with each other, share updates, ask questions, chat with your curator, SeedLinked Team members, and other growers – and perhaps even brag about who was able to grow the biggest tomato along the way! All participants will also get to take part in three live garden check-ins hosted by your Collection’s curator throughout the growing season. While every Collection will be slightly different, you can expect to have a live check-in starting with planting tips and tricks for your Collection’s varieties, a midseason check-in to talk crop care, and a harvest time check-in to talk about culinary use and storage tips (and in the case of our Beginning Seed Saver collections, seed cleaning demos!).  

One thing that is different about our Seed Collection Experience is that seed won’t be shipped right away as you’d expect when ordering seed. Collection participants will receive their seeds in February, just in time to get early crops started indoors in time for most growing seasons in North America. 

So Why the Seed Collections Experience?

We can learn so much by all growing and sharing results on the same varieties. We get incredible insight into regional performance variation and grower preferences, which then gets shared back to the growers so they can make more informed decisions next season. That data also helps to inform the choices of seed companies, seeing what growers love and what they struggle with in various parts of the country. Take for instance the beginning seed saving collections curated by the Organic Seed Alliance. There is almost no public information about the results of seed growing in different regions of the country, to help small and medium seed companies understand where growers can successfully produce quality seed of different crops. While you might learn a new seed saving skill with this collection, a regional seed company may unlock a whole new region of potential seed producers.

The Seed Collections Experience is an opportunity to receive seed of some unique and exciting varieties, learn about our platform that allows you to collect, track and share growing results, and communicate with other growers and the curator throughout the process. Best of all, everyone is contributing to common goals, helping each other along the way and providing information for the whole seed system to make more informed decisions in the future. We are firm believers that a rising tide lifts all boats!

Who’s Involved, and What Collections?

Partnership and collaboration are at the heart of SeedLinked’s mission, and we are committed to meeting the needs of our partner food systems changemakers and supporting the work that they do. Your purchase of a Seed Collection Experience will help SeedLinked cover our cost to handle logistics and provide the platform and will also provide support for our curator changemakers. They do so much work to educate growers, and we want to be sure their work in the garden and efforts to improve our seed systems are fully appreciated. Some of our curators have also chosen to support other important initiatives happening in our food system by donating ten percent of Collections profits. Check out the individual Collection pages to learn more about these projects.

We’ve got an awesome lineup of partner curators with varied roles in the food system. We encourage you to view all the Collections to get more details HERE. If you don’t have time to check them out individually right now, here’s a sneak peek:  

  1. Lane Selman, of the Culinary Breeding Network, is curating an Italian Roasting (Corno di Toro) Pepper collection, and a Cutting Celery collection.  
  1. Craig LeHoullier, of the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project and all-around tomato-extraordinaire, curated collections of his favorite Slicing Tomatoes, Paste Tomatoes, and Cherry Tomatoes, highlighting some of the varieties bred by the volunteers of the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project alongside old favorite heirlooms, and some interesting finds from his own garden. 
  1. Meg Cowden, of Seed to Fork, took two different angles – curating a collection of top varieties of cabbage for any season, and a companion planting seed collection featuring marigolds alongside culinary spice peppers meant not just for fresh eating, but also for spices like paprika or sauces.  
  1. Nate Kleinman, of the Experimental Farm Network, is highlighting the crop diversity of the future with a collection that explores diverse and underappreciated perennial vegetables, as well as a second collection focused specifically on highlighting some of the exciting kale diversity available to growers – including a perennial kale! 
  1. Bjorn Bergman, an avid gardener, SeedLinked Co-Founder, and long-time participant in Seed Savers Exchange’s Community Science ADAPT Program is bringing his love of fresh garden salads to the table with a garden lettuce collection.  
  1. Organic Seed Alliance chose three different crops to offer beginning seed saver experiences: sunflower, dry beans, and cherry tomatoes. Not only will participants get to experience the beauty and deliciousness of those crops, but they’ll also be empowered to learn new skills to save their own seeds for friends, family, and future seasons. 
Forellenschluss Lettuce from Bjorn Bergman's Seed Collection
Forellenschluss Lettuce from the Lettuce Eat Salad seed collection.

The Seed Collections Experience was born from our desire to offer a themed growing experience with guidance from curator experts while also making collaborative trialing more accessible and fun. Seed Collections participants join a growing experience that includes seed, support throughout the growing season from their collection’s curator, and the opportunity to connect with growers to trial and experience a crop in community all while growing new varieties in the comfort of a home garden or farm. 

Jared Zystro is Organic Seed Alliance’s Research and Education Assistant Director. He has worked in the organic seed industry for over 15 years, managing seed production at two farms and conducting research and education projects with OSA. He currently manages OSA’s regional development in California, conducts participatory breeding projects and variety trials, and teaches farmers about seed production and plant breeding at workshops, conferences, and field days.