There is extensive processes to minimize the spread of diseases from seed stock. Unless you know what you are doing it's a great way to turn your home garden ground zero for the local plague.

For example -

Tomato- seed needs to extracted with acid or a peroxide to kill bacterial canker.

Pepper - TMV virus is ubiquitous in commercially grown peppers. The seed needs to be treated with TSP (Trisodium phosphate).

Watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydews and others. Seed needs to be treated with peroxide to eliminate bacterial fruit blotch.

For the cantaloupe and honeydew up to 80% of the fruit grown in some regions are infected with SQMV. The seeds of these fruit should not be saved.

For pumpkins/squash the seeds are almost always infected with ZYMV. Seed plants need to be grown in protected culture to prevent this.

Potatoes - since potatoes are a tuber every single major disease is transmitted from one generation to the next. This includes virus, fungi and bacterial infections. If you want scab and blights and viruses riddled plants this is an great way to do it

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How would a living garden with presumably healthy plants that caught these from other vectors normally deal with these problems?

Could you grow a generation from scrap. Collect seed, cleanse, and rotate the bed for a year to let the presumably infected crop die out.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

First off generally these diseases are limited by environmental conditions and available vectors. So starting with clean seed/stock can permanently eliminate the need to worry about many of the diseases. A good example of this is SQMV. It's spread mostly by the spotted cucumber beetles. These are only found in some states of the U.S. and Mexico.

As for how to deal with the disease depends completely on the pathogen. You can clean up many diseases by proper sanitation and crop rotation techniques. Historically leaving a field fallow was a method to reduce disease pressure.

Others are not so easy to get rid of. For example, Fusarium species can persist in the soil for up to 30 years. Once you get it, you are not getting rid of it. It's such a large issue that commercial growers in highly infected regions have gone to grafting resistant rootstock of a different species.

[–] Bosht@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

God damn this is good to know. So on the specifics on potatoes: I was always under the impression a potato is just grown from more potatoes. In this case you'd need to grow it from a seed? Are there potato seeds??? I need to google this.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Potatoes are grown from both seed and tubers.

Plant breeders develop new varieties from true seed. These plants are in the diploid state. They then convert them to the tetraploid state by application of colchicine. After conversion they are only replicated via tubers.

The first generation is completed in the laboratory by cell culture. This ensures the starting point is free from diseases. Then they go to small sterilized plots where a few potatoes become more. This process repeats for several years increasing in quantity until the first pre-commercial potatoes are grown. During this time all fields are carefully inspected for diseases and contaminated productions are sold for consomption.

The potatoes are finally sent out to growers for commercial production. That's where they pick up all the lovely diseases and then are sent to the store.

[–] Bosht@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Amazing info, truly, thank you! Have a great evening!

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 points 2 days ago

it would be better of just buying the veggies/fruits and then growing it from its tissues, rather than use half decomposing food. if you acess to auxins/giberellin hormones you can potentially grow many veggies or tomatoes from just the tissues

[–] moonluna@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Didn't know that. I eat organic and I've never noticed such problems

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's because organic producers toss the most severely damaged produce away before it ever gets to the store.

The loss of production due to disease and pests is one of the major reasons organic production overall is more damaging to the environment.

[–] moonluna@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is utter nonsense. When i was in the States I went to organic farmers markets, known some of the local farmers, went to the amish, this isn't a thing in the slightest.

Outside of America this would be even more laughable as all the natural producers of fruits and vegetables would ask you "what in the world are you talking about?"

Even the country I'm in now would be puzzled by this statement. It's far detached from the reality I live in and experience

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Your reality sadly isn't the real one. It's far more complicated.

https://ourworldindata.org/is-organic-agriculture-better-for-the-environment?ref=goodoil.news

The problem with organic farming is it is too simplistic of an approach. It's tenants are based upon a guess not scientific data and enforced regardless of if it makes logical sense with what we known now.

[–] moonluna@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is study by Clark and Tilman (2017) that they based their results from doesn't correlate to any reality that I've ever witness. I tried to find connections to a GMO producer that they might of had but I could not. Because I can't understand how they could come to such a conclusion.

Non organic farming uses just as much fertilizer and on top of it uses very toxic chemicals from synthetic pesticides. So their eutrophication levels would certainly be higher than organics that may use fertilizers but dont use the synthetics.

The report also shows that it is some not all instances that organic is worst for energy levels or pollution which as nothing to do with your claim nor my claim of viruses coming from regrowing your vegetables/fruits from the grocery.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Did you read the paper?

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa6cd5/pdf

It's a pretty decent one but there are others that I find better done. I posted the world in numbers one because its got nice graphs and is well cited.

I'll post more if you would like to discuss it futher.

As for your question on nitrogen/phosphate runoff it's pretty simple. Organic fertilizers like manure take time to break down by microbial action into the exact same molecular chemicals as synthetic fertilizer. Say you have 4 months of production time when the plants can use nutrients. Microbial action on manure can take up to 6 months until it releases all of the nutrients. The excess nutrients that are release when no crop is growing runs off and causes environmental damage.

As for my comments on disease and seed, I can give you references to all of them except the SQMV. That's unpublished data that I used to convince some idiot C-suite types to release some capital investment. Gave a pathology tech a very bad few weeks one summer.

You are under the impression the all synthetic chemistry and GMO's are bad. This is flat out not true . They are technology that can be used for very f Good and stupid uses. Example a very good GMO is virus resistance (PRSV in Papayas). A fucking stupid one is Roundup resistance.

[–] electricyarn@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

But the manure already exists? It's putting to use a waste product. Whereas the synthetic fertilizers are being added to the nitrogen cycle of our planet. Don't you think thats an important distinction?

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

No manure is a waste product for crop production. It is extensively utilized in conventional agriculture. Organic production unfortunately uses it inefficiently.

There are some pretty complicated biological processes to explain this but I'll try to keep it short.

First off manure is a not balanced fertilizer. It's got two much of some nutrients and not enough of others . This imbalance causes two issues: it delays the release of nutrients and causes excess unused nutrients to buildup in the soil.

The nutrient composition in manure varies widely as well. There are many variables that can affect this. It's pretty wild when you get the laboratory test back.

Most of the nitrogen in the original food source for the animal is lost by denitrification before the next years crop can utilize it. There flat out is not enough N in the manure to raise our crops without synthetic fertilizer

Application of manure acidifies the soil. Acidic soil locks up nutrient via chemical reactions.

The most efficient and environmentally friendly way to fertilize crops is with a combination manure, compost, synthetic fertilizer and covercrops. The addition of synthetic fertilizers allows farmers to reduce the amount of manure they apply and balance out the nutrients ratios. It also reduces the total need of synthetic fertilizer and increases the soil microbial activity. The covercrops capture and hold nutrients over the winter and minimizing the runoff and inputs for the following year.

[–] moonluna@lemmy.world -5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I read the paper. I already know organic food is better than GMO, people have been farming organically 99% of humanities existence compared to GMO. If you want to eat that man made manipulation of nature you can but I'll just eat the nature. No synthetic is good for organic lifeforms which humans are. You humans think you can out perform nature but you can't.

[–] IncogCyberspaceUser@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Food crops have been manipulated(domesticated) by humans for thousands of years before GMOs.
https://www.sciencealert.com/fruits-vegetables-before-domestication-photos-genetically-modified-food-natural

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Lol, you KNOW do you. That sounds like a religious belief. When you come to a conclusion based upon a belief and then try to force facts to fit it.

Yep that doesn't work for me.