Are there people who approach organic gardening completely without ideology or undue naivety or rationalization?

People who instead realistically analyze the pluses AND the minuses?

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against even the faith-based home gardeners, they are fine. It is totally their right. I have nothing at all against organic gardening and am about half-way over to that side myself.

I merely ask does anyone approach it with eyes wide open, critically aware of the both benefits AND limitations? And aware of the snake-oil aspect of many who peddle or preach to it?

I like no-spray and minimal spray and organic spray and organic fertilizer and such, where they work, which is reasonably frequently. But the belief-system of the tribe does takes some getting used to I must admit.

Perspective has a lot to do with things. If we approach growing in our gardens (not agribiz) from the perspective of what is best for the plant (we ARE growing plants, not gardens), as measured in growth/yield/attractiveness, we soon arrive at some sort of middle ground with an inherent helping of latitude. We become locked tight into a very narrow set of parameters as soon as we allow ourselves to sacrifice a measure of reason in our gardening practices on the altar of the need or want to conform to political and ideological considerations. I think that's fine for any individual to make that choice, even if it is very self-limiting, but it's important to realize that not everyone holds the same perspective or wants to import the value set of someone else. Options good - dogma not so good.

Al

So the answer to your strange and rather unscientific question, is, yes obviously there must be some, since the odds demand it. Equally obviously, a very small proportion of organic gardeners are "rigorous scientists".

I think the answer to this is a very obvious and vehement "yes." It's very easy to "follow the label directions" and even if you don't read, somebody can tell you how it's used in about 2 minutes, it takes no thought or education. If the answer to your question was "no," all of the organically-grown plants would be considered happy accidents, lucky to be noticed by the unconcerned and uneducated people involved. What is the option - to think that all organic endeavors are motivated by politics, or that they are all vague experiments with no scientific foundations?

And aware of the snake-oil aspect of many who peddle or preach to it?

I'd say the snake oil is in all of the bottles and packages of stuff, and the attitude perpetuated by manufacturers of these substances that we should be controlling nature instead of living in harmony with nature, learning how things work and making the most of natural processes, substances, and symbiotic relationships. It doesn't make sense to me to meddle with substances that could make me or my family ill while trying to grow food to keep us healthy and well, have some grass to play on, or trying to grow a pretty flower.

Are there people who approach organic gardening completely without ideology or undue naivety or rationalization?
People who instead realistically analyze the pluses AND the minuses?

The attitude that it's normal to use sprays and cides but it's abnormal to abstain from their use is bothersome to me. What is naive to me is thinking that these substances just disappear, are harmless, and that long-term, large-scale, non-stop use of them will have no negative consequences. I don't rely on companies to tell me what particular grass should be growing in my lawn (to the exclusion of all other plants) or that I need to buy some stuff to "do something about" the hormworms on my tomatoes or the aphids on my gardenia.

When it comes to growing plants, I am about 90% organic but retain a healthy scepticism about a few of the claims. I am watching and proving what works right here in my garden labs.

Not at all. In fact, (if I'm mistaken Al, please correct me) I don' think Al has a formal degree in plant sciences. However, I sincerely consider him to be twice the scientist compared to a good many of the pros I know and work with. The guy's a natural. (and a top-notch communicator to boot).

If you are keeping good records, analyzing them, and altering your procedures based on good data and observations ... you might be a scientist.

If you understand the need for untreated control plants and plots and regularly employ them, you are getting closer.

Most sound very level headed and with clear reasoning (clear rational reasoning based upon some firm evidence, or a recognition of insufficiency of evidence, is basically what I meant by scientific "rigor").

Net boards do indeed tend to bring out the harder-lined, as one of you noted, so the view does get skewed. Oddly enough, for a purely written environment net boards also have more than their fair share of those who read or comprehend poorly and imagine a different meaning than is actually in the prose before them, and that too adds to the problem.

I also added to that problem with "ideology" and not better describing what I meant. Certainly not political, but rather I meant driven by supposition: say, artificial=bad, organic=good as an assumption rather than a concluded truth, or better yet a carefully thought out weight-of-the-evidence tipping of the scales.

William Faulkner's SECOND LOOK book [about 1946] relates how his belief of raising more organic matter to shallowly incorporate into the soil will energize the breaking down of minerals and nutrients to feed the plants. He believes that the soil as it is can support crops bountifully if "real soil" is there. Sir Albert Howard and others in the past affirmed the same thing. Trouble is the experiment stations are fixiated on boosting yields and the latest sprays.

The same parallel exists in the health arena and of course in the spiritual realm.

Yes, money drives many things, and yes, a profit is needed to drive some good things....so it takes some wisdom here.

OP, are you aware that your question is fairly offensive?

You're essentially asking whether there are any organic gardeners that are capable of intelligent, rational thought. Yes, indeed, there are. And I'll concede that there are conventional gardeners that are capable of intelligent, rational thought.

But I'd bet that my feeling the need to say so sounds sort of offensive to conventional gardeners, doesn't it? And wouldn't it be even more offensive if I _asked_ if those intelligent, rational conventional gardeners existed at all?

Me, I'm an engineer; does that count as rational? Regarding the question of whether organic practices "work", I'm pragmatic enough to accept that, yes, there are some things in some places that cannot be grown using organic practices. I'm also pragmatic enough to accept that sometimes a gardener does not _have_ to grow absolutely everything that he would like to grow. Sometimes, when the choice is between a crop produced with toxic inputs, and no crop at all, the intelligent, rational decision is to choose no crop at all, and grow something else next time.

You may feel that the decision to refrain from spraying a toxic mixture, and to thereby lose a crop, is an irrational ideology-based decision that I came to by mindlessly following the "tribe" of organic gardeners. I may feel that toxins are a bad thing and that I'd rather not spread them if I can avoid it. Perhaps avoidance of toxins is a wildly irrational behavior, but it's a behavior that I will continue to engage in.

ChickenFreak

Does this refer to situations where insect pest pressure is so high that crops without massive chemical protection get ravaged? In which case the evidence is clear from studies over the years that those situations are ultimately caused by the pesticides.

Or does it refer to a situation where the soil is so barren that the only feasible way to raise a crop is to input high-index mineral salts? In which case, as you say, the rational choice would be to not raise crops in such places.

I would like to see a rational scientific argument showing that it makes more sense to use conventional ag practices anywhere at any time. Conventional ag is a race to the bottom, a classic prisoner's dilemma.

So the devil is always in the details. There are lots of analytical persons and gardeners (and engineers), just not all of them.

Anyone who denies that organic gardening has more than its fair share of persons guided more by favored belief than by rigorous evidence is living in a dreamworld. I do not mean to imply that there is anything inherently wrong with this situation or outlook, particularly in something as noncritical as home gardening. I am curious, however, as to what proportion of organic gardeners are more rigorous in their analysis.

For a simple example, one of many (and one where I myself do not know the experimental evidence): I have long read comments and more formal writings of the opinion that chemical fertilizers somehow "damage the soil or the soil biota." I also know that there are many (semi-)organic gardeners who are simply "no synthetic pesticide sprays" and don't quibble over chemical fertilizers. They, for instance, know that blood meal nitrogen becomes ammonium or nitrate before any garden (vascular) plant can use it and thus don't mind directly applying ammonium or nitrate fertilizers. Do the purists have some deeper, more fundamental, and more-rigorously scientific understanding of soil ecology? If so, the ones I have read certainly do not display it very well. It seems much more like dogma.

So how much of organic gardening, as practiced, is a faith-based belief system and how much is based upon rigorous thinking about both agronomic evidence and personal acceptance of degree of risk?

Note again, there is nothing wrong with either end of this spectrum. Lysenko and Stalin are long dead and probably almost everywhere in the world (save possibly North Korea) anyone is perfectly free to believe what he wishes in this matter.

I'll, for an end of this, put out my own take on one practice: mulching of fruit trees. Empirically, to my experience, this works out very well. It is obvious in part how it helps. It moderates temperature of the upper soil, baffles air movement, and retards evaporation of soil water. It slowly adds nutrients (especially K, N, Ca) and adds them faster in the warm growing season (as it decomposes faster then). And for me, a non-purist, it takes my light applications of chemical nitrogen fertilizer spread onto the top and makes it into an organic fertilizer, before finally releasing it slowly. It also slowly adds organic matter to the upper soil and may support soil invertebrates that help in the mixing. Mulching MAY (if one as-yet blindly accepts some claims) improve matters further by promoting fungal communities over bacterial-dominated ones and, as a still further benefit, this in turn may reduce populations of troublesome nematodes.

All pretty good, right? So where does a rigorous analyst depart from a true-believer? The latter tend to proclaim "Mulches are THE answer to successful dooryard fruit cultivation!" (much like "Rock dust is THE answer elsewhere" implied in a link shown above) while the more analytical person might note that his own experience is on sterile, droughty, nematode-infested sands and thus the findings may not be universally or even predominantly applicable. The citrus grower may instead have found that the fungi and damper conditions encouraged by his mulch rotted the roots and killed his trees. In areas of light rainfall, thick mulch may even intercept too much of the precipitation. Oops, no universal truth -- the norm in careful analysis, the exception in faith-driven belief.

But to each his own. And I wish each his best. (The gender part here and above is simply standard English: “I wish each her best” too of course.)

You have opened a delightful discussion. I know from experience that the longer one practices a certain belief [along with getting older and more set in one's ways] that a person tends to get more dogmatic and defensive in their way.

Perhaps in a perfect environment plants would be disease and insect proof, but most of us are not likely to arrive there.
I just cannot swallow whole some of the conclusions from Sir Albert Howard for example. Still, he is very helpful in his theories.

Gargwarb - Thanks for the kind words for which I'm in your debt. I'd have thanked you by email, but there's no link on your user page

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Logically speaking: Any time you limit the availability of options the pendulum swings further toward the 'more difficult to achieve an end' side. If the end is a plant as healthy as it can be ..... that is, a plant that is growing as close to it's genetic potential as possible, it makes no sense to limit one's self to an 'all organic' ideology that is potentially limiting, or to allow limitations unless they can be remedied 'organically'.

If, however, there is concern that your (used collectively) application of a synthetic fertilizer or even a pesticide applied, guided by IPM practices, will cause ruination of the garden or the earth, then it makes perfect sense. We need to recognize though that the perspective has shifted from what's best for the plant to what's best for me and everyone else ...... but by what standard?

I don't think that acting on one's own belief set is a bad thing as long as it's responsible, but 'responsible' is subjective. Who determines what responsible actually is? 'The law'? Laws are in place to protect the rights of others, so perhaps the best we have, no matter how inadequate it seems, is the law. When we hold our own value set as morally superior to the law, disappointment in our fellow man is bound to be abundant.

In the end, I feel the question boils down to prioritizing. I tend to place a high value on keeping my plants as happy/healthy as I can. As a bonsai practitioner and a gardener with a heavy focus on display gardens, I have a lot of plants that are valuable both monetarily and in a sense that might be best understood if we think about the relationship we have with our pets, some of the bonsai having been nurtured for 20 years +. Can I be made to feel guilty if I use a synthetic fertilizer, or if I use a pesticide to rid plants of a stubborn pest? Not a chance - that whole ".... liberty and the pursuit of happiness" thing. If your priority is a garden soil that contains nothing but OM and no synthetic residue, you have my blessing and understanding; but it accompanies the expectation that you'll respect my priorities in like fashion, lest in turn ye be judged judgmental.

As far as that whole 'rigorous scientist' thing, I think we need to look at how people view the sciences. Their mind set. Scientists doubt and question, but they don't make up science to conveniently fit their observations. Cliche, but: the more you know, the more you realize what you DON'T know.

These forum pages are filled daily with authoritative assertions that are very often simply the result of imaginative inventions by folks struggling to explain what they are observing in their own plants and gardens - non-scientists making stuff up or parroting what other non-scientists are spreading like ....... well, spreading. The scientist analyzes his observations & checks them for conformity to what is known scientifically. He questions his own observations when they don't conform to what is considered to be true and looks for the means to justify the cause:effect of his observations. Scientists are curious by nature - always exploring the cause:effect relationships of the things they observe, and that curiosity inevitably affords them a broader knowledge base, which in turn warns them when the cause part of the cause:effect relationship doesn't fit. Scientists are more honest (with themselves) in their thinking, saying "that can't be" more often than "I think this is how it works".

If 'keeping good records, analyzing them, and altering your procedures based on good data and observations' were the measure of a scientist, as mentioned upthread ....... Hey! Wait a minute! That's my accountant! ;-)

Al

> I would like to see a rational scientific argument showing that
> it makes more sense to use conventional ag practices anywhere at
> any time. Conventional ag is a race to the bottom, a classic
> prisoner's dilemma.

Oh, I'm not advocating conventional practices in these situations. I refer to situations where the something about the location - climate, diseases, pests, whatever - means that you simply _should not grow_ that crop in that place. Maybe extreme and toxic conventional practices would make it technically possible to grow that crop in that place - for example, maybe you could drench the crop with something to kill the fungus that would otherwise destroy it every single year, something that's also likely to contaminate the groundwater with toxins. To me, the need to do that means that you simply shouldn't grow that crop in that place.

I think that part of being organic and sustainable is to accept that there are times when you just can't have what you want. Sure, there are no doubt exceptions - for example, if someone found a crop that would cure cancer, and that crop would only grow if drenched in fungicides, I say on with the fungicides! But, usually, the solution is that you can grow something that's more suitable for the location.

ChickenFreak

What leads you to believe that blind faith is more common in organic gardeners than conventional gardeners? How many conventional gardeners stop to analyze whether they really _need_ that application of weed-n-feed that year? How many of them analyze whether the application of an insecticide will kill more harmful than beneficial insects? For that matter, how often have we seen posts here from conventional gardeners who say, "Uh, I just applied X to my vegetable garden. Can I eat the food?"

Most people are non-analytical. Most people are consumers who buy a product based on advertising and use it blindly. That applies to plenty of people who use Round-Up and plenty of people who use rock dust and organic fertilizer. I'd guess that organic gardeners engage in more thought and questioning, simply because organic gardening _is_ inherently an activity that questions that standard way to do things. But that only means that organic gardeners are likely to be more scientific on average; there are no doubt plenty of them, just as there are plenty of conventional gardeners, that just go on blind faith.

Your question seems to be based on the assumption that conventional gardening is already based on scientific, dispassionate, rational judgement, and that therefore only things that vary from the conventional need justification. Just as drinking soft drinks, eating Ho Hos, and smoking cigarettes are based on scientific, dispassionate, rational knowledge, right? Commercial entities selling us things that _aren't good for us_? Inconceivable!

A discussion of judgement and analysis and scientific method in the choice of organic practices could be a productive discussion. But if you start that discussion by asking, essentialy, "Are there any organic gardeners who aren't idiots?", you're not going to get that discussion.

ChickenFreak

(Scientific credentials? Ph.D. in biology, Harvard. And she gardens organically.)

It's a really good book; the rest of it is a _very_ clear discussion of plant genetics and the genetic quirks and breeding practices for various plants. Even if you're just into seed saving, not breeding new varieties, she offers some good guidance for that - seed saving involves selection, which is a plant-breeding activity, so knowing about breeding and genetics is still valuable.

I believe that so called "big ag" is fairly scientific. The ag colleges and the research centers are "all in" for higher yields, higher grower profits, and better methods and better grain storage to achieve those goals.

Trouble is that the end products are not as healthy to the consumer...yet the industry is fairly scientific.

Science does not inherently support "big ag" _or_ organic gardening. With limited exceptions, the people who pay the scientists decide what science will accomplish - not, of course, what discoveries are made, but certainly they control the areas in which discoveries are sought. Big ag pays a lot more scientists than organic gardeners and farmers do, so there are more scientists working on the goals of higher yields and higher profits, and fewer scientists working on the goals of the health of the consumer and the environment.

But that's not about science. That's about money.

Science is neither good or bad. Science can, and does, serve organic gardening very well, in the person of scientists that believe in the goals of organic gardening and who will work for those goals in spite of the limited amount of money driving them.

Organic gardening is inherently based in science, and it's a mistake to reject science merely because others can afford to pay for more of it. It would be better to find ways to pay for more scientists to work on the goals of organic gardening and farming.

Science thrives on, nay depends upon, aggressive questioning of both basics and the details alike.

Again let me assure you, I wouldn't demean even prayers to the Corn God, but I would like better to understand what makes some of the practitioners tick. The howls of those who think I am apostate, or worse, beyond the pale, don't help much except to reaffirm that among them there are beliefs held more strongly, and without presented appropriate evidence, than one would normally find among scientists. That is just precisely part of my point. I knew this existed, a degree of faith.

The question was, however, are there those who support and believe in the many and varied values of "organic gardening" (in its broad meaning) but also rigorously examine the evidence related to it, both empirical and theoretical evidence. People who, for instance, and just to start with, know that there is no essential agronomic difference between copper sulfate mined somewhere and copper sulfate made in a chemical plant, insofar as its use as a fungicide is concerned. Or people who might realize that their cooking up of lime sulfur from burnt limestone and sulfur mimics the "burning" and manufacture in a chemical factory. There is no natural lime sulfur.

Who among the broad group chooses what works and what makes sense in rational (rigorous) examination and rejects the dogma, the fluff, the chaff? (Note, if one were in fact trying to be derogatory there are a lot of other more-pointed terms and a lot of examples that could be raised, but that is not my purpose.)

Personally, I was more interested in fertilization and fertility and tilth matters and how well organic practices stand up to scrutiny because these practices are desirable in many other ways.

But I have also sadly concluded that discussion with true-believers is pointless. You get reaction rather than discussion. Certainly not reliable information.

But my (now rhetorical) question remains, are there persons who think like scientists who are trying to make organic gardening work, insofar as it can work, with a clear eye as to what works, why, and what doesn't so well, and why?

I'll bet he speaks for many.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/soil/msg111632373684.html?18

"reductio ad Hitlerum". That's pretty funny.

Thanks.

"But my (now rhetorical) question remains, are there persons who think like scientists who are trying to make organic gardening work, insofar as it can work, with a clear eye as to what works, why, and what doesn't so well, and why?"

Yes. The answer is yes. Your refusal to hear the answer reflects a rather unscientific attitude on your part. If you want to read about some scientific, but home-scale, experiments by organic gardeners, read the book I recommended a few posts up. No doubt you will find a way to tell us that the author of that book, a Harvard-educated biologist, is untutored in science; I hope that you won't be _too_ surprised when I'm not convinced. But go ahead and call me defensive when I try to tell you that Harvard is not entirely populated with idiots.

I've given you a reference. So give us one. Please tell us about the highly scientific practices of conventional gardeners.

When the average suburban conventional gardener chooses a new pesticide, he no doubt scientifically compares several options. How does he set up that trial? How many different products does he trial, and what does he use as the control? How many plants does he use for each trial patch? How does he ensure that each trial patch has identical conditions? How does he ensure that there is no insecticide overspray so that the patch for Trial Pesticide A doesn't get accidentally get any of Pesticide B sprayed on it? Is shielding overspray sufficient, or does he instead need to locate each patch on a different property, or at least a few hundred yards apart, to avoid any cross-contamination?

What criteria does he use for evaluating the pesticide? No doubt he weighs the good harvest, the harvest destroyed by the target insect, and the harvest destroyed by anything else - anything short of that would be unscientific, because it would ignore side effects. For example, an insecticide that reduces worm damage but also reduces pollination might result in zero damaged fruit, but also a smaller amount of perfect fruit than would have been achieved without the insecticide. Also, how does he decide where to categorize harvest damaged by more than one thing?

Surely he also carefully logs:

- Seedling survival.
- Days to harvest.
- Days of harvest.
- Quantity of nutrients in the harvest.
and so on.

There's of course no chance that a conventional gardener would just go to the store, ask an employee what will kill the bugs, and grab a product. That wouldn't fulfill the highly scientific standards that, we now understand from you, are an essential characteristic of the average conventional home gardener.

Now, is there _any chance whatsoever_ that you'd like to actually talk about science? I rather doubt it, but, hey, I may post something anyway.

I try to use organic fertilizer, since I believe the health of the soil is very important, but if it reaches a point where a plant is unhealthy and a chemical can "fix" it, I'll do it.

Same with pesticides - I have an informal "IPM" type arrangement with my fruits and veggies, but for certain pests, I've had to break out the chemicals, and will do so, if I have no other option left.

I also don't hesitate to use pesticides INSIDE my home, since my wife has the attitude of "if it's a bug in my house, kill it as fast and swiftly as possible".

Growing in the earth organic just makes sense. With good practice sure synthetics can be used safely but organic methods do add and build soil every year.

Thanks.

I did, and the results were that organic produce from the mainstream supply always scores higher than conventional, though not necessarily by much. When I did find scores in the acceptable range or better, it was always for organic produce.

There may be two major reasons to venture into Organic Gardening. "spirituality" or "science". There may be many various sub branches that fall under those big umbrellas, but in general those are your primary two reasons.

Perhaps you think living in harmony with the planet and ecosystem is a better spiritual pursuit and will have an effect on you in the afterlife (as well as the current life). Perhaps you have read some stodies that organically grown food is higher in nutritional value and taste than comercially grown food.

So You can get to Organics both ways, the question you seem to be asking is, is there some validation of the people in the spiritual camp, because the science happens to show that thier "belief" has merit? Well to a scientific mind, no, there is no validation of someone's immesurable belief system, based on the fact that there is scientific data that supports it. That would just be coincidence.

However, to the Spiritual, yes it does help to validate thier belief system to others who view the world more spiritually than scientifically.

From my perspective, which may be somewhat unique, I believe it does validate "organic" and I believe they validate eachother. I think as science progresses, we are going to find more and more that we are being guided spiritualy, at a gut level, to do what works best in the real physical, scientific world.

CH

rig�or�ous adj \ˈri-g(ə-)rəs\

Definition of RIGOROUS
1 : manifesting, exercising, or favoring rigor : very strict
2 a : marked by extremes of temperature or climate
b : harsh, severe
3 : scrupulously accurate : precise

__________________
Large scale ag is what is a issue, not synthetics.

In fact, organic large scale farms can pollute even more moving compost and heavy organic material here and there. Conventional farms spread fertilizer in one easy application using way less gas. I think organic farming is way over rated and I am a little tired of just of how over rated it is. It is mass ag that is doing damage. It is not in-organics that are bad, it is large scale ag and over population.

rig�or�ous adj \ˈri-g(ə-)rəs\

Definition of RIGOROUS
1 : manifesting, exercising, or favoring rigor : very strict
2 a : marked by extremes of temperature or climate
b : harsh, severe
3 : scrupulously accurate : precise"

I don't!

"I doubt it.
rig�or�ous adj \ˈri-g(ə-)rəs\

Definition of RIGOROUS
1 : manifesting, exercising, or favoring rigor : very strict
2 a : marked by extremes of temperature or climate
b : harsh, severe
3 : scrupulously accurate : precise"

Haha so true RpR.

Everyone that gives into the organic hype does not care or understand science. Glad I found this post!

Everyone that gives into the organic hype does not care ABOUT, or understand science.

Around this area potatoes grown in sand under irrigation does indeed pollute the ground water, but we like our french fries and we can't seem to turn a profit unless we have a constant supply of nitrates being applied and flushed through the sands.

There is no way to organically build up the millions of acreas producing food around the country, but perhaps we could figure out the correct equation of nitrate applications that supply energy ONLY to the plants.

Sound science could likely help us clean up the waterways over time, but phony belief systems and political special interests do not allow sound science to function.

We could if we reduced the amount of food coming off those acres and increased the amount of bio-mass that remained. That would require paying farmers to improve the land, and that money could only come from government through taxpayers.

One result of chemical fertilizing is more biomass and more organic matter.

Something we tend to forget - mankind has only been doing this for, what, 60-70 years?

At the link is a timeline of farming in the USA - note the tons of commercial fertilizer use expand. It would be interesting to see when and how much pesticides have been used.

I have a link too. Here you can link and read mostly older books and see how things were done in the past.

'Are there organic gardeners who are also rigorous scientists?'

No."

Oh, I dunno. I know at least a dozen scientists, PhD's in several fields, who religiously garden organically. In fact at the university where these people work, I'd bet that the vast majority of PhDs in the assorted science departments will pop for organic produce. Which is why one often finds the best selections of organic produce and great farmers markets in college and university towns.

As do the vast majority of medical doctors.

The sugar snap pea could have been produced by a "normal guy" who had 10s of acres of land, a ton of free time, access to an extreme amount of breeding stock, and knowledge or proper pea hybridization aligning in some perfect storm...but it took until the 1970s a guy with a PhD to bring it to the world.

Many hybrids we take for granted are produced in ways that would blow some people's minds. Anther culture for dihaploid pepper breeding to speed the time to get breeding stock stable and bring a true-to-type pepper to market is not only amazing (and may make little sense to some people here), it's practically impossible to do outside of a sterile lab situation...and the process to do this was created by people with...PhDs. This isn't GMO...it's as natural as propagating a plant via cutting...it's just done on a smaller plant cellular level...and it's nothing short of amazing.

You can't chalk this up to elitism. You use it even if you don't appreciate it.

Which was supposed to be yesterday; now I had to pick a new date.

Finding the parent material that makes the magic can be a bit of work, though.

Myself, I've created (independently, as a hobbyist) my own sweet pepper which took many years and generations of breeding to form a mostly-stable (pod segment variation not stabilized) sweet pepper. The plant is very vigorous and produces thick-as-bell-pepper walls, but you're as likely to get 2 segment peppers as you are 3 segment peppers...and the occasional 4 segment pepper (uncommon, but happens) all on the same plant. If I wanted to spend more time in creating my ideal 3-segment pepper I could have, but this was a minor feature in what I was trying to develop. It comes true to type for the major things I considered important.

Fwiw, I freely distributed the seed with no ownership or further development strings attached.

You can pretty well count on the apocaloypse not being when someone predicts it to be...for it is at a 'time you think not.'

I have never really had a sport or such that was feasible. Burbank developed his new varieties by planting a large number and selecting the few that headed in the direction he wanted to go. He repeated this until he had a stable variety.