Organic Horticultural Seed in Wales - A survey of growers’ experiences of varieties grown from organic seed in 2006

Summary

The Organic Standards require organic producers to use organic seed. However, a derogation can be obtained from certification bodies to allow the use of non organic seed where appropriate organic material is not available in the UK. An official database of organic seed availability, ‘Organicxseeds’, has been developed and is used as the basis for derogation decisions. However, there is a lack of information and a great deal of uncertainty in the minds of growers, about the performance of many varieties available in organic seed. This means that growers could potentially have to make variety choices on the basis little or no information.
For the last 4 years, Organic Centre Wales, with support from Farming Connect, has coordinated a survey to help organic growers in Wales share information about the performance of varieties grown from organic seed. The survey (see Appendix I) was sent to all members of Farming Connect Horticultural Discussion Groups and other individuals who had responded in previous years or otherwise expressed an interest in the project. The information from the returns was collated and analysed and the results sent back out to growers in time to inform their variety choices for the 2007 season.