Preserving "DEFENSE-READY" Seeds Through Scientific Serendipity
#ecobluefarms that Quiet Part of the SUN Rise I was pondering on HOW my choice to only purchase seeds not in my library in 2024. was made possible. Then learning there is a Scientific study that supported my observations, called SAR (Systemic Acquired Resistance).
This knowledge came by accident during our new journey with incubating our first Quail in May 2021, then brooding them out in an outdoor open floor hutch, which started out with a poop tray, that quickly became something to RETHINK, between the smell , flies and snakes who would frequently lodge overnight and unsuccessfully gain entry into the hutch, the daily cleanout of the poop trays was overwhelming. Rob finally suggested out of pure exhaustion of tackling the removal of the trays and its surprise visitors😒 on a daily basis, since there is already an open floor using 1/4” mesh and pine shavings, why not just let the droppings fall to the ground !!! ding ding ding 😲
Well that move solved the hidden snake problem, yet we still had to deal with the smell the flies and the snakes still coming around, I was NOT feeling this and was reconsidering this journey, it just did not seem healthy or safe to me. However, I’m not a quitter.
After another few weeks, I went to feed the quail, and I noticed the ground underneath was kinda moving !! and I was a little freaked out, and stood there and noticed WOW where are the flies? And what are those Black flying things that do not seem to be concerned with me, and they are making no noise, like the common house fly type that was such a bother?
I took a picture of one of the creatures, and found out it was a BLACK SOLDIER FLY (that’s another blog) of amazing information.
Well once I started studying, I was ALL IN. Of course I forgot to tell Rob and one morning he came rushing in and announced “Babe, I don’t want you to be alarmed, but I was feeding the Quail, and noticed the ground was kinda moving !!!” I said oh babe yesss that is BLACK SOLDIER FLY LARVAE and LORT I gave him a whole lecture in excitement on the benefits from free food for the chickens and the quail to composting to having soil and seed benefits. I get so excited I forget to slow down 😂💕
Well now I get to the topic of SAR :
The next grow season, I started using the soil from underneath the Quail hutches as my seed/transplant starter, because by now the soil was saturated with FRASSE [a mixture of primarily Black Soldier Fly Larvae, feces, substrate residue, and shed exoskeletons. and it just became common place that I had no pest and disease issues all of sudden !!!
I continued studying the impact of this special soil, and found out that this was actually breeding into the SEEDS and TRANSPLANTS a form of resistance that provides long-lasting (up to several months) and broad-spectrum resistance or defensive capacity developed BY A PLANT when appropriately STIMULATED. In more technical terms this is SAR [Systemic Acquired Resistance], I was like WHAT NOW?!!! ok let me keep reading on this.
Stick with me now, because it only gets better !!!
SAR involves the generation of a MOBILE SIGNAL (s) in the primary INFECTED tissues (within 4-6 hours), its rapid translocation to systemic UNINFECTED tissues, and preparation of the systemic tissue for subsequent infections from related/unrelated pathogens.
TRANSLATION 😂if the plant receives a signal from a sick or infected part of itself, like a leaf getting disease from the soil, it sends a signal to the healthy parts of the plant to prepare for war and quickly ward of the spread !!!
Not only does this happen in the existing plants, the SEEDS from this now shall we say inoculated plant, have now become TRANS-GENRATIONAL !!!! and will carry on the benefits, where immune “MEMORY” is passed on to the NEXT GENERATION OF SAVED SEEDS !!!!
So for my garden I am humbled to know I had a small hand in helping my future gardens by furthering these (4) SAR characteristics: in my SAVED seed library
1-the signal(s) generation ability in the primary infected site
2-Systemic translocation of the SAR signal (s) [the MOBILITY]
3-signal(s) perception in the systemic tissue
4-induction of a “defense-ready” status. [to me this means IF there is an infection the plant readies itself to keep it from spreading
CHEERS !!! NOW LETS RAISE OUR PINKIE FINGERS AND GRAB SOME COFFEE ☕
