Cofrin Center for Biodiversity

History of the UWGB Heirloom Plant Sale

The Heirloom plant sale was started by pepper enthusiast and Seed Savers Exchange member Jeff Nekola in order to provide additional funds to support a program that would bring notable speakers in the sciences to UWGB. Jeff has moved to New Mexico but the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity has taken over managing the sale.

The goals of the sale have not changed. The funds raised are used to provide an opportunity for students to meet and hear a diversity of perspectives and learn about latest research. Faculty or students can be sponsors and all of the talks are open to the public. In the past we have had speakers talk on a variety of subjects including phosphorus issues in the Great Lakes, endangered butterflies and land snails, new statistical techniques used in environmental science, plant community ecology, and a variety of other subjects. We also use the funds to provide students with money to travel to scientific meetings and conferences to present their own research results. All profits are used to directly benefit educational opportunities

Heirloom vegetables are gaining in popularity across the country, because they speak to our hearts as well as our palates. These are plants that our great-grandparents were growing, and it is possible to buy or trade seeds of plants from cultures around the world. Our sale includes many varieties developed specifically for the midwestern growing season. We also have a large number of vegetables from other parts of the world, including peppers and tomatoes from South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and southeast Asia.

collecting tomato seeds.

Vegetables have been cultivated for thousands of years. As people traded seeds and moved across the world they interbred different varieties in order to improve or develop specific flavors, colors, yields and the plants' ability to survive in a particular climate. Unfortunately, mass producers of vegetables decided to improve transportability and shelf life in vegetables at the expense of flavor and quality. Mass production of these hybrids led to decreasing diversity of vegetable varieties, as farmers plant large mono-cultures of tomatoes and other crops. At the same time the traditional family vegetable plot has mostly disappeared. Some varieties have already gone extinct because there was no one left to plant these wonderful vegetables. A growing interest in personal history and gardening has led to the preservation of many of our heirloom treasures. Native Americans, Amish and Mennonite groups have long collected and preserved vegetable seeds and now there are many others collecting and trading seeds as well. The Seed Savers Exchange and the Native Seeds Search are organizations that have been instrumental in preserving vegetable biodiversity by collecting, growing, and trading seeds.

Biodiversity Topics: Introduction . Plants . Animals . Mammals . Birds . Reptiles & Amphibians . Arthropods . Spiders . Insects