This is on news now.. http://www.soilassociation.org/news/newsstory/articleid/6730/soil-association-calls-on-public-to-help-save-our-seeds-at-2014-edible-garden-show
Excellent campaign by the Soil Association. Saving your own seed makes even more sense with the steadily increasing price of seeds and you get the benefit of seeds which are adapted to your own soil.
Some crops adapt very swiftly too - for example by rogueing out early bolting lettuces and saving seed from your row at the end of the season you rapidly produce your own lettuces that won't bolt in your local environment. I don't worry about crosses I just grow a selection of lettuces and save seed in one pot and resow the next year - gradually over time there will be crosses and new varieties, but effectively I am just maintaining my own diverse land race that suits me and my soil.
The state of the seed industry is a massive danger for human kind.
Scary that just a handful of people control so much seed! We need to liberate ourselves from this ! It does affect organic farmers who try to diversify and grow different crops than just the market standard ones (often grown for yield but not always taste or some other criterion!).
Quote from: amphibian on April 09, 2014, 11:32:16
I don't worry about crosses I just grow a selection of lettuces and save seed in one pot and resow the next year
Lettuces are highly inbreeding so they rarely cross anyway. ;)