Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm grows vegetables and seeds crops in Winters, California.
Kristyn is part of Second Generation Seeds - a collective of Asian American growers devoted to helping communities of the Asian diaspora discover and deepen their cultural heritage through seeds.
In this episode Kristyn talks about managing her spring plantings to deal with symphalan pressure with the added challenge of high salt irrigation water.
About managing a growing seed company out of her home.
How she sells vegetables and how seed production influences the vegetable crops she grows.
About the Seed Steward program – eight month farmer-led journey exploring Asian and Palestinian heritage crops
What participatory breeding looks like in a Napa Cabbage selection project by getting feedback through annual Kimchi making events.
What it’s like running a lo-fi seed operation out of your garage and what seed cleaning steps happen on farm.
For this episode’s technical deep dive into a seed crop, Kristyn walks us through growing perilla for seed from plant selection, through harvest, and cleaning. She also discusses the influence photoperiods have on perilla flowering and seed dormancy,
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You can listen on
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- Or use this RSS feed to subscribe in your podcast player of choice: https://feeds.libsyn.com/412058/rss
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Thank you to Kristyn for being on the podcast!
Thank you to Farmer Jesse and Jackson Rolett of No-Till Growers, and the podcast’s sponsors The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security and The Organic Seed Alliance – Their support is what has made this podcast happen.
And thank you for listening!!!
Great episode Dan!
Your podcast is making my commute to work a little more entertaining and informative.
Love Kristyn’s idea of selling geeky CSa shares that complement a plant breeding project. So ingenious…though I personally am not far enough into the “metaverse” to be attending virtual potlucks 😉 but I see how the feedback would be really beneficial.
Keep up the great work!
Hey Eric, I’m so happy you’re enjoying these!!