Unless you're totally opposed to having it grown at all you could offer it up for trade in an exchange on one of the board's exchange posts/forums.

As much as Monsanto-owned hybrid seed companies get...no one seems to care about the Syngenta/DuPont/etc owned seeds...kinda like everyone jumps on Walmart while ignoring Target.

Good luck with your purchasing power vote...it's only gonna get harder.

If it really bothers you then grow open-pollinated varieties aka heirlooms rather than hybrids and then you don't have to worry about it. Any hybrid is going to be owned by 'somebody' and 90% of the time you won't know who.

Dave

Yes, it does really bother me. I am new to this, only my third year growing vegetables, and I just figured out what F1 means. So I guess I will be growing only OP from now on!

aggiebee-

And what does F1 mean? (this will be interesting)

If I ate cauliflower, I'd ask you to send the seeds to me. I'd be happy to grow seeds from a Monsanto-owned company or any other. Monsanto's Roundup-Ready seed has allowed LESS, and LESS TOXIC pesticides to be used, and that's good news for the environment. I'd love to give them my business so they can do more good work.

Monsanto owns a lot of seed companies that have nothing to do with GMO. They're totally separate operations that rarely (if ever) mingle with each other.

The hybridization work they do is the same quality traditional hybridization work done by "non scarey" companies. They just happen to own the companies (mostly by buying them out) that produce them.

Fwiw, anyone getting into buying GMO seeds or some fruit trees (such as papaya in HI) are required to either take a class on GMO safety (mostly for fruit trees) or sign a contract with the seed supplier (seeds). You're not going to find GMO seeds in seed packets at your local retailer or out of a retail market catalog.

F1 represents the first generation seed of a genetic cross between two distinct varieties. The result is hybrid vigor. Saving seeds from the F1 generation is not recommended since the seed does not represent a single variety.

Yeah...I have a fairly close cousin who works for Monsanto. The way some people talk about this company you'd think it was based in a dark castle on a hill with constant thunder and lightning outside.

While I don't think Monsanto is "based in a dark castle on a hill with constant thunder and lightning outside," I am unhappy with a lot of their practices.

And I am not nervous about ending up with GMOs in my garden, but it is a long-standing consumer practice, at least in democracies, to vote with your wallet. Hence, I can avoid Monsanto products that are not GMOs to protest their use of GMOs.

So I guess I will be growing only OP from now on!

While there are some advantages to growing only OPs and many do, needless to say there are lots of hybrids that are NOT owned by Seminis so if your boycott is only with them you still have lots of hybrid choices.

The Seminis website lists all of their home garden vegetable seed patents (organized by vegetable) so it is easy to determine which varieties to avoid.

But since you are relatively new to home gardening and its issues, I'd strongly encourage you to research both sides of the Monsanto (and Syngenta) issues before making such a choice-restrictive decision. So much of the negative publicity about both companies is very personal-agenda oriented rather than fact-based so it is to our advantage to keep an open mind.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Seminis Vegetable seeds

I do find it hard to find unbiased information, and I certainly would hate to rule out growing hybrids.

I will keep researching. Just as the negative publicity seems overblown and slightly paranoid, the defense of Monsanto seems also knee-jerk and not convincing.

Here's Syngenta's hybrid (non-GMO) lines, fwiw.

http://www.syngenta-us.com/seeds/vegetables/

Also, BEWARE of fake/misinformed/ignorant lists of companies owned by Monsanto. Some are some so woefully incorrect that if it wasn't just some list on the internet they would get sued into the ground. Seed companies that sell of their hybrids are not necessarily owned by Monsanto/etc.

Whatever the ins and outs of the seed merchant, I do find Cheddar to be delicious. I prefer it to any whites I have had.(I don't grow it myself but buy them from a local market gardener.)

I make every effort to avoid supporting anything remotely related to Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta. I want GMO's labelled on food products and Roundup should be banned. Because of Roundup-Ready crops farmers are using stronger and more toxic herbicides. They are unable to stay ahead of the mutating weeds. Anyone who thinks what these companies are doing is okay should look into the almost 300,000 Indian farmers that committed suicide. Search this on Youtube: indian farmers commit suicide monsanto, and filter it for longer than 20 minutes. You will be surprised.

I avoid ordering Seminis based seeds and avoid the companies that work with them. Except for onion plants- Dixondale is the only good choice for commercial onion plants so I just get the non-Seminis varieties.

There are many seed companies that refuse to work with Seminis and so you can grow OP or hybrid and still avoid them. growing just OP doesn't really avoid them.
Occupy Monsanto used to have a Seminis free seed company list but it is gone now, sorry. I order most of my seeds from Fedco. Read the list of seeds for home gardeners on Seminis site and then check for the popular cultivars whenever you look at a seed catalog or website.

To replace Cheddar, Territorial seed has an orange cauliflower called Sunset.

And no, GMO crops do not reduce pesticide use. Statistics show it has increased.

But what does the F in F-1, 2, etc actually stand for?

But what does the F in F-1, 2, etc actually stand for?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Interesting question.

But hybridizing is just a CROSSING on purpose. It happens without human interference all the time.

F1 means Filial 1 which is the first filial (offspring) generation produced when crossing different parent varieties.

Here is a link that might be useful: F1

Better article than most on this troubling phenomenon.

Here is a link that might be useful: Village Voice

That Village Voice article...

The author seems to have no idea how seed companies work, that there are alternatives to GMO seed available in commercial amounts (with the exception of sugar beets recently thanks to a bottleneck and EXTREME switch to GMO sugar beets over a 2-year period, close to 95%). Once again we have an article about how farmers seem to be stupid and unable to make a choice for themselves or they're being forced (which is total b/s) to plant something against their will.

The "farmer is stupid and/or bullied" notion is ignorant and insulting to so many people on many sides of the industry...not to mention not true. Some people just cannot accept that a farmer, many farmers, would willingly choose to crop GMO. Those same people seem to not understand that even with a higher seed cost they're still making money compared to conventional systems. Yes, farmers can do math. Yes, farmers are able to use spreadsheets and crunch numbers. Yes, farmers have free will. We're talking about corn and soy here...this isn't that guy with 50 acres growing tomatoes and broccoli for the farmer's market...this is that guy (or company/cooperative) cropping 5,000-100,000 acres of corn/soy/etc.

There's more to GMO than seed and yield. There's costs hidden (not really hidden, actually known) in all points in between. The types of herbicides used, the number of times you need to apply it, how it's applied (tilled in vs surface application), the amount of times you need to drag equipment through the field, labor, machinery, fuel, time spend in the field vs doing other things (economic cost)...etc. If it costs $250 to bring an acre of conventional corn that yields 160 bushels, but $220 to bring an acre of GMO corn that yields 150 bushels...guess which one the farmer is going to choose? Scale it up to 5,000-100,000 acres and we're talking serious loot.

Monsanto isn't "cornering the world food supply"...hell, Monsanto doesn't even have the best selling corn OR soy GMO products in the US right now. This is another article that seems to be so obsessed with Monsanto that it can't even gauge the industry on whole.

If Monsanto went away tomorrow, Syngenta/Bayer/Dupont/Dow would still be around and farmers would still buy their products. These companies control 75-95% of many grain/oil crops out there and it's because farmers keep choosing them. Anyone can go buy all the non-GMO Spectrum seed corn (as a single example) they want and use a century+ worth of conventional farming techniques, but many aren't.

The good news is that cauliflower doesn't spread around too much pollen :). I grew Cheddar a few years ago, really pretty on the raw veggie/dip platter. I think the carrots were jealous.

I just wanted to drop in to say thank you to nc-crn for being so awesome. That's all. Carry on. :)