The most interesting subreddit about things you're not interested in. Come here for writeups about drama in various hobbies, interests, and fandoms over the years.
Long
I'm just some hobbyist, correct me if I'm wrong. I repost now that the drama is "old", per the rules this time.
Background
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
A popular US seed company. If you would like more background see my post below.
Heirloom vs Non-Heirloom vs GMO
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Heirloom seeds are grown with the intention to isolate desirable traits across many generations in order to produce one stable inbred line of plant genetics, resulting in predictable, genetically similar offspring. This is referred to as "true to seed".
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Non-heirloom seeds are not inbred and carry a lot of variability. When two plants cross pollinate, they create a hybrid of the parents that results in offspring that express an unpredictable mix of genes.
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Genetically modified seeds are engineered using gene editing technology, sometimes with genes from unrelated sources.
GMO and Patented seeds entering the consumer gardener market
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In the consumer market, patents can be granted to plants such as roses and apples. One of the stipulations is that these plants have to be propagated asexually by cutting or (non-seed) tissue culture for the patent to be applicable. This means that it is permissible to save, sell, and grow seeds from these plants (if not sterile), because the offspring are not exact genetic copies.
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Patent granting on seeds stipulates that the traits expressed cannot be the result of open pollination breeding (wind, insects). As a result, these patents are mostly applied to GMO seeds, where genes are manually influenced in a lab.
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Previously, there were absolutely no GMO seeds sold to the consumer market due to USDA/FDA restrictions. Companies fearmongering about GMOs were easily dismissed. You simply could not buy GMO seeds outside of commercial applications.
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The implications of GMO seeds, which are almost all patented, hitting the market is that the plants can cross pollinate with a non-patented plant, and pass patented genetics on to the offspring. The offspring would be the lawful IP of the company that owns the patent for as long as the patent is active (can be as long as 20 years).
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Almost all gardeners rely on open pollination between their plants, so there is untread territory on what may happen down the line when more seeds of this nature become common place.
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Despite this, the reception of new GMO varieties like the purple tomato and glow in the dark petunia has so far been largely positive.
Purple Tomatoes
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Until now, attaining a tomato variety that was purple both inside and out and could reliably hold that genetic trait in its offspring was just out of reach for tomato enthusiasts. There have been many purple skinned varieties of tomatoes, and many that came close to having perfect anthocyanin rich insides, but a company called Norfolk was the first to make it happen through science.
The Controversy
Timeline
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After 20 years of work, biochemist Cathie Martin and her team successfully isolates the gene that codes for color in a purple snapdragon flower and integrates it into a tomato, making a first of its kind stable variety of purple fleshed tomato.
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Norfolk makes headlines for getting the first USDA approved GMO seed out to the consumer gardener market, obtaining a utility patent.
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Around the same time, Baker Creek releases a seed catalog boldly featuring a mysterious new purple fleshed tomato they called Purple Galaxy, as well as making social media posts and videos claiming it is non-GMO.
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Across social media people begin to notice the striking similarities between the new tomato and the high publicity Norfolk Purple Tomato, finding the timing strange.
Speculation
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"I think you’re right that these look suspiciously related to Norfolk’s GMO purple tomatoes due to the unique purple flesh and also the deep purple gel. But I find it highly unlikely that these actually are related since the purple GMO event was patented and anybody trying to monetize it would be clearly open to litigation."
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"It’s funny how non-gmo is a thing with home gardeners. You can’t even buy gmo seeds as a consumer."
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"This looks shockingly similar to Baker Creek's Purple Galaxy Tomato that mysteriously disappeared from availability this year."
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"Baker Creek are lying liars who lie. That whole catalog is a festival of photoshop, and then if you fall for it you'll only get about 30% germination."
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"I’d be unsurprised if they are hypocrites, in addition to being wacky."
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"I really suspect that whoever bred the "Purple Galaxy" variety advertised by Baker Creek somehow got some leaked germplasm from Norfolk Healthy Produce's GM breeding program. I don't doubt that it's possible for a natural mutation to pop up that makes purple tomatoes"
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Baker Creek responds
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Baker Creek responds to concerns on social media:
"We have had every possible genetic test ran on these tomatoes to ensure they are Non GMO. This is a product of many years of selection work."
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Shortly after, Baker Creek abruptly halts the sale of Purple Galaxy Seeds citing unspecified "production issues". Screenshot credit: @Buckeye on growingfruit.org
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Baker Creek pulls the listing and deletes all social media posts about it, appearing to not acknowledge the tomato any further.
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As u/fisch09 points out, a mysterious account named u/heirloom23 appears in the comments sections to speak on behalf of the company. It is unclear if this is an official company account, but at the very least it appears to be a loyal employee:
"Labs are looking for specific genetic markers the first lab was looking for 2 specific genetic markers, which it did not contain. As stated in the FAQs, this was acquired from a country that does not allow GMO crops."
Norfolk responds
Norfolk releases a response to the speculation that has flooded the internet:
Is NHP's Purple Tomato related to the "Purple Galaxy"?
We have received many questions about the purple tomato marketed by Baker Creek as “Purple Galaxy” in their 2024 catalogs. We understand from Baker Creek that they will not be selling seeds of this variety. Given its remarkable similarity to our purple tomato, we prompted Baker Creek to investigate their claim that Purple Galaxy was non-GMO. We are told that laboratory testing determined that it is, in fact, bioengineered (GMO). This result supports the fact that the only reported way to produce a purple-fleshed tomato rich in anthocyanin antioxidants is with Norfolk’s patented technology. We appreciate that Baker Creek tested their material, and after discovering it was a GMO, removed it from their website.
r/Gardening reacts to Norfolk statement
Turns out the "Purple Galaxy" tomato advertised by Baker Creek was a GMO
"Whatever your stance on GMO, I think we can all agree that companies have a legal and moral obligation to accurately represent their product to their customers."
"Baker Creek lied and possibly ripped off another company's IP? Color me absolutely not shocked."
"Baker Creek doesn't produce the majority of the seeds they sell, they buy them from seed farmers. But they should have known better when they saw a variety that appeared identical to a "first ever" gene edited strain in development."
"The problem is that they [Baker Creek] lied and said they tested it for GMO several times"
"Being that Baker Creek has in previous years jumped all over the anti-GMO fearmongering, I'm howling at the irony."
"typical baker creek hot mess"
"Bakers Creek lost my care or business with its shenanigans."
Norfolk goes ahead and posts the seeds for sale at $20 for 10 seeds
Seeds, fruit and plant material are only allowed in the USA.
The seeds are a patented variety and are sold to enjoy in your home garden and with your local community.
No sales of fruit, seeds or plants are permitted in this agreement, including any derived varieties.
r/Gardening reacts to the patented GMO Purple Tomato seed itself
"This is why I grow heirloom."
"It will be interesting when people start making crosses with the trait."
"Really cool thing about this is that anthocyanins also delay rotting, so these tomatoes are more shelf-stable, making them more environmentally friendly. Anthocyanins are also good for us (like blueberries). It’s a pretty nifty and elegant design, I’m excited to try them out."
"Just ordered some of these, can’t wait to try them! I hope I can make purple spaghetti sauce and maybe even some purple ketchup later this year (if you know, you know.) Really cool! It’s not every day you get to be part of a moment in food history."
Baker Creek responds to the controversy after some considerable silence and reputational damage
BAKER CREEK DISCONTINUES PURPLE GALAXY TOMATO SEEDS Baker Creek regrets to inform you that we will not sell seeds of the Purple Galaxy tomato, which we previewed in our 2024 catalogs. After repeated testing, we are unable to conclusively establish that the Purple Galaxy does not contain any genes that have been genetically modified. Baker Creek remains steadfast in its commitment to selling only heirloom and open-pollinated, non-Genetically Modified (“non-GM”) varieties.
There is actually a whole rant after that by them about "Big Ag" despite them being one of the most well known online seed companies in the US, but you'll have to read that archive link for the rest.
The Empress Tomato
The purple tomato whose seed was sold to consumer gardeners is now being sold for a limited time in stores as The Empress Tomato by Red Sun Farms.
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Q&A
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
History
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is a large US seed supplier for the consumer gardening market that was founded in 1998 by Jere Gettle.
Per his book, "The Heirloom Life Gardener", he began his company after hearing rumors about genetically modified plants that were "'terminator plants' that could kill off seeds so that they wouldn't grow the following year" and "stories of experiments in which human genes were being injected into plants".
His business took off when the craze around Y2K made people fear a societal breakdown. Of this he says:
The Company's Target Market
People who have concerns about bio-engineered plants
People who have concerns about the state of the world [Pandemic, Prepper]
People who like the traditionalist aesthetic
Hobby gardeners
People who think that the store varieties are tasteless
Controversies
2011: Baker Creek hosts controversial speaker Joel Salatin at it's Petaluma Seed Bank for a talk about his book "Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World"
2019: Baker Creek invites controversial speaker Cliven Bundy to speak at their planting festival
A social media post appeared alleging that the official company account made a post which reads:
There is a lack of archival evidence that this occurred beyond a grainy screenshot of a post and response message the user claimed to have received from the company about it.
The 2024 Purple Galaxy Tomato Incident (Outlined in this post)
Social Discourse
The company is openly religious.
Some people state that they feel the company uses their children as props, particularly their adopted child who is asian.
Some people state that they do not give credit to some of the indigenous people from which their seed varieties were sourced.
Some people claim that the germination rates of BC seeds are "terrible". BC has been known to conduct germination rate tests and marks their seed packets "Overpacked due to low germination rate" to compensate for it when identified.
"The Great Klan of Corn" paragraph is like being hit over the head with a frying pan.
Great writuep!
This is one I can 100% see them saying, but nobody archived it when they said it so it was successfully scrubbed from the internet. They tend to pair some wacky posts with pictures of scraggly unkempt mountain men in rustic settings.
Damn did not expect to read about Cliven Bundy in this post. It’s a weird choice but not completely suprising from a company that seems to label itself traditionalist.
wait, the nuts with the standoff during obama years who refuse to
pay taxes(1 million in cattle grazing fees) and try to steal federal land?edit: Just read up. The feds gave up and they continue browsing and accumulating fines. Fuck those militias.
The very same
Is that the one where the internet sent him a box of dildos?
I got myself removed from their mailing list when the Cliven Bundy thing happened. The person who replied to my email claimed that the company didn't know about his past. I told them that they were very bad at the internet if that was truly the case.
Wow, I had no idea about any of this. I've bought a ton of seeds from them over the last two years as I've started gardening because they just seemed interesting and high quality. Ughhhh.
Seed Savers Exchange and TrueLove Seeds are worth a look, if you need a new place to buy seeds! Both of them are more like shared catalogs for a bunch of small farms, and they have a ton of varieties.
Throwing Grand Prismatic Seeds and Farmacie Isolde in as well.
I also have seeds from Ohio Heirloom Seeds (because I live in Ohio), but there is a weird "None of our seeds are grown in China" bit on their About Us page. So uh, take that with a grain of salt.
I call it the Chick-fil-A Dilemma: when batshit crazy people have a product you’d legitimately want if only they didn’t make money off of it
I feel the same way every time I get In-N-Out. At least they pay their workers fairly, is what I tell myself.
I've had Chick-fil-a four times, twice in Windsor, ON, once in the Chicago airport, once in Vegas.
It's been routinely terrible. I've tried the burger, the spicy burger and the tenders - I'm a massive fried chicken fan. I literally took a trip to Nashville just for hot chicken.
What am I missing??? Am I terrible at ordering? Are those bad locations??
Half of the attraction is hype owing to an intentional scarcity of locations, but the other half is that their chicken tends to be consistently moist and the breading is incredibly mild and inoffensive- a thin, even coating with minimal spice. There is no question that there is better fried chicken out there, but is there more ubiquitously palatable fried chicken out there?
Yeah, my wife gets seeds from them because they have lots of interesting varieties
They do, but I don’t think the varieties are generally exclusive — she can get the same seeds from other places online.
ETA: I used to look at the Baker Creek catalog and find the seeds at other suppliers, but then I settled on some favorite seed companies. I like MIGardener (they have good videos too), Kitazawa, Johnny’s, Territorial, Alliance of Native Seedkeepers, and the Roughwood Center for Heritage Seedways (great for unusual heirlooms, with provenance information).
The only thing Baker Creek has that others don’t is a beautiful catalog.
Unfortunately, there is a large cross over with general home crafts/management and the fundie, prepper, and gun nuts. It's just a thing to be aware of.
Dude same. Why does everything have to ultimately be shitty? It's so exhausting. Here I was thinking I'm being thoughful about my seed purchase. 🙄
Proof that I can, in fact, hate two people with opposing opinions
It's always fascinating to me to read about what Baker Creek is up to. A friend and I went to Mansfield, MO for one of BC's first Spring Festivals, back before they got so big and famous. It was a hoot! Cars getting stuck in the mud in their grass field parking lot, getting pulled out by a tractor. Jere dressed up in a banana-yellow suit looking like the biggest yokel ever, though he's a very smart and well-traveled guy. Vendors selling homemade stuff and lots of plants. Jere and his family had a very homespun quality to them - yes, you could tell they were religious and traditional.
The storyline progressing from “hobby gardeners having a reasonable discussion about GMOs” to “Cliven Bundy speech at the harvest fair” to “the Klan of Corn” gave me whiplash lol
Anyway I didn’t know that stuff about cross pollination between gmo and non gmo seeds, pretty interesting.
It's why a lot of farmers get sued. The issue is that GMO is not supposed to "escape" via wind but it does. The modified genes have shown up in grass on highways medians. It's why the first rounds of GMO testing have to be done underground in controlled settings.
I thought that farmers getting sued for cross pollination was pretty much a myth
Bowman Vs Monsanto 2013. Bowman bought mix grain at a grain elevator that he knew might contain protected Monsanto seeds. He was sued for growing the GMO seed without paying Monsanto. It also made it crystal clear that you can't buy once and save your seed for replanting. You have to rebuy for every crop.
Monsanto has a network in the Midwest where people will rat on their neighbors.
Yes that is the one case everyone knows but has there been any others? You said that a lot of farmers get sued. EDIT A lot of the other cases I found are not about cross pollination and are mostly just farmers replanting seeds without paying
I mean yeah it’s an obvious result of the use of GMO plants but I just had never thought about it since I don’t work in anything related to agriculture science.
No, I do not and now I'm confused.
I wonder, had the timings been different (e.g. Baker Creek started selling purple tomato seeds 5 years after the Norfolk announcement), would they have been caught quite so quickly, if at all?
That commenter was surely referring to the purple Heinz ketchup with the disgusting name that was a thing in the 90s! And that is a great question I wondered too.
The people who care about heirloom seeds really, really care about heirloom seeds, so they'd have still been caught quickly. It's a bit like selling counterfeit/bootleg stuff to haute couture fashion or historical artifact collectors, that level of scrutiny and outrage if caught.
I find it funny that Norfolk's current faq throws shade at BC in particular. There is definitely a GM seed community that is as passionate about seeds as the heirloom one too, so no way they wouldn't get caught by either side.
In case you missed it OP, baker creek dove into commenting on reddit for brief period during the controversy as u/. Heirloom23.
Thank you for mentioning that, it does seem like an employee of the company, maybe not in an official capacity but definitely worth reading. I will add it in!
I got the impression it was an employee initially pretending to be anonymous, then came out directly.
Great post, I was hooked! GMOs are such a great example of how humans can use science to better the world and then immediately capitalize it into a dystopia.
Capitalism is why it exists in the first place.
Doesn’t mean everything should be capitalized, though. Read up on private fire brigades if you want to see what I mean.
I just want to tangent to say that there's a show from 2001 that has a character protesting GMOs because "we don't know what side effects they'll have 20 years from now"
So now it's been 23 years. Where are the side effects??? Oh there aren't any????
But I agree with r/gardening, while I think there's no reason to fear GMOs it's not okay for businesses to lie and misrepresent their product like that.
The only negative effects are the patents letting the GMO firms dictate how the seeds are used,which is more a legal issue than anything inherent to genetic modification
The legal issues too seem to be overblown. Bowman v Monsanto was ten years ago and hasn't at all been the disaster many commentators at the time (including myself) feared.
I think Patents are over after 20 years. The AG companies make their money on advanced breeding techniques to make better lines, and selling hybrid seed that does not breed true.
Not sure why downvoted, as to my understanding this is true. The plant is under utility patent US-8802925-B2 granted in 2014 and expiring some time in the 2030's, which is why they were able to threaten BC with legal action.
We have seen patent expiration like this before with Monsanto seed patents expiring and becoming free to make generics from.
Interestingly the purple tomato is true to seed.
Yeah, i am very curious what a commercial grower would think of the purple tomato. I am guessing the yield is terrible compared to hybrid varieties.
Great. Now we have more data and can proceed accordingly. Until we did, there was justifiable reason to be fearful. There have been MANY instances of things (like DDT, leaded gas, asbestos, and JK Rowling) that everyone cheered for that turned out to be horribly bad for you. At this point, caution pointed at huge corporations is more than warranted. Ridiculing people who are preaching the idea of further testing and caution is a dangerous game.
I love that JK Rowling is included in a list of toxins, lol
I mean it took 50 years for the world to figure out leaded gasoline was bad. There's a lot of other examples in history that make people suspicious of new things.
You could argue you need a few people to eat these tomatoes to see if there's any adverse effects.
Personally I'd be growing these tomatoes this year but it's too late. I don't fear eating existing GMO crops - the only concern is they allow for an overuse of roundup which may possibly harm humans, and definitely harms pollinators.
Right? Not sure why people would ridicule someone preaching caution and testing instead of jumping into something we don't know about.
first person because I disagreed with them, second because they assume I am an antivaxer.
Oh man, my gardening setup is not good this year because my fire escape garden is pretty shaded but if I had the right space I would absolutely grow these. Purple tomatoes are so cool!! I bet the team who isolated the gene are so thrilled at the results of the plant.
I relate, I used to cram all my plants on one small dark balcony and the year I finally got to rent a house, I went all out. Now I can't go back I'd have to forfeit all my plants!
I am really surprised that none of the Flavr Savr GMO tomato ended up in some modern tomato lines. It was sold commercially for several years (1994-97). Nothing would stop consumer/breeders collecting the seed and breeding with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavr_Savr
It’s because the Flavr Savr tasted lousy! Calgene spent millions of dollars to engineer the Red Delicious apple of the tomato world.
An unknown (because there's no requirement to report it) but probably large (because the procedure is widespread) number of varieties of plants were created by genetically mutating their seeds. Bombarding them with radiation or toxic chemicals in the hope of causing a mutation, and then planting them to see which had the desired effect. I'm not certain if it's true for the heirloom seeds in this case, but it's certainly true for most of the none-GMO crops you eat. I
Personally I feel that the targeted genetic manipulation of the GMO process would be much less likely to produce something toxic than the random nature of none GMO mutations. The ability to patent a plant may be a different matter though.
Yes! Thank you for mentioning that, this is especially the case for tomatoes. I wanted to include that but didnt know how to fit it with the topic. Not every heirloom is as natural as it may seem.
GMO is brilliant, the only real issue is the patents which give the companies far too much control over what people do with seeds they purchased.
Also genetic drift of anti-pest genes that leads to resistance. But honestly, I'm so pro gmos overall, especially with stuff like golden rice which unfortunately has been the target of smear campaigns
Yeah, GMO tech is one of the best examples IMO of “cool technology, but can we take it away from those guys now?”
Obligatory fuck Monsanto
Great writeup! It is so rare to see good, clear, technically correct information on Reddit about Plant Patents vs utility patents on seed
Incredible write-up! I'm firmly in the "heirlooms typically have more flavor" camp as well as the "GMOs generally aren't a concern outside of fringe cases" camp, so this was a fascinating read.
Also, I'm obsessed with your username.
All our foods are GMOs. Its just that now we can do it in a lab instead of cross breeding a dozen different strands over a decade.
Exactly! The fringe cases I'm thinking of are basically just cases involving allergies and intolerances.
Same here. Do you have another online source for good heirloom seeds? I was buying from Baker Creek but reading things in this thread has me thinking I should look elsewhere moving forward.
There are many companies that specialize in certain plants.
For tomatoes, I highly recommend Wild Boar Farms.
For strawberries, I highly recommend Strawberry Seed Store by Michael Wellik.
For all manner of plants, people have said they like buying from:
Seed Savers Exchange
Southern Exposure Seeds
Territorial Seed
Johnny's Seeds
Fedco Seeds
Uprising Seeds
Alliance of Native Seedkeepers, who works to preserve the heirloom seed lines developed by indigenous peoples.
True Leaf Market, which sells seeds from the companies of "Mountain Valley Seeds for conventional, Sustainable Seeds for organics, Kitazawa Seeds for Asian varieties".
Etsy also has a strong community of growers trying to make new varieties and maintain heirloom ones.
Thank you so much!
Will keep adding to the list as I think of them
I've had good luck with Etsy, to be honest! Be sure to check reviews, of course, but they're a pretty good resource.
Seconding Etsy, there are a lot of small but dedicated growers with deals to rival the big suppliers.
Thank you for the kind words!
Thank you so much, this was such a sketchy and weird drama while it was happening. I'm a little sad I didn't pick up the purple seeds from Norfolk this year despite the cost, but I am exclusively growing dwarf varieties in containers so I don't know how well they would do.
I followed all this in real time and then ordered some of the purple tomatoes seeds to try growing myself this year. I've got 2 nice seedlings and am excited to see how they do!
plant drama plant drama
Can you contextualize the price? $20 for 10 seeds - is that expensive or cheap compared to heirlooms or other desirable seeds?
Extremely expensive for just any seeds, but normal for seeds of speciality varieties. You can get heirlooms for as low as a quarter a packet, or if you buy online its $3-5 for some. For things that are popular like superhot peppers they can be between $5-8. For new varieties that have some kind of extremely rare trait that took years to stabilize and there is limited stock of, you're looking at $20+ for seeds. This seed has not only a first of it's kind rare trait that took many years of work to express, it grows true to seed if you plant the offspring.
Thank you, this write up was fantastic!! I loved the background information and pictures especially!
Oh, thank you for the repost! I read this the first time too and it's so fascinating. As someone who both loves growing tomatoes and read about (though not growing her own) drama, this was a great read.
Yeah I definitely didn't read all the rules at the time I was too focused Hobby dumping. Thanks for coming back to read it again!
On a side note. My favorite purple tomato is black beauty. It’s a deep red on the inside but the flavor is delicious.
Great write up and topic!
I am always fascinated by the backrooms negotiations and drama behind plant breeding, GMOs, hybridization and IP grabbing.
This was a great summary/write-up to read! Thanks OP.
On a tangentially related note, it is very cool to see supermarkets now more open to mixed strain plants, hybrids, cultivars and heirlooms more and more. I mean I see a lot of people posting about Pineberries, Yellow Watermelon, Gold Kiwis and the like. Now if we could just popularize a banana alternative...
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