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Question


Question
Good day
With reference to spouting seeds for food like wheat grass, I was wondering where do the seeds come from.
Are there any spouts that one can grow for nutrition that would produce more and more seeds as they grow, so that one does not have to keep buying seeds.
What would be 5 - 10 examples of such sprouts.

Answer
Hi S. Mahabir,
Thanx for your question.  First of all, I am not a scientist or agricultural technician.  I am a hobbyist and all of my expertise was gained through self-study and trial and error/experience.  Your question has more to do with agricultural or food production than it does with seeding and propagation.  With that said, I will do the best I can to answer your questions.

Wheatgrass comes from the common wheat plant Triticum aestivum.  I do not know how to prepare wheat grass as it is one part of the wheat seed and it comes from allowing the wheat to grow during a longer period of time.  You can get more seeds by planting more wheat than you need and reserving part of the crop for seed saving.  This is what has been done for the last 10,000 years when humankind first started domesticating grains, fruits and vegetables.  Many people in the U.S. and all around the world save seeds.  Part of a controversy in developing countries and even in the West is that certain agro-giants are hybridizing certain grains and other plants so that any seeds that are produced will be sterile and so the farmer will have to go back to the seedsman time-and-time again to purchase more seeds.  Many poor countries and people on limited budgets, depend upon being able to save seeds from part of their crops in order to grow crops the following year.  You will need to find an open-pollinated variety of the Triticum aestivum as hybrid seeds are not reliable for saving and often result in less desirable plants.  One place I would recommend that you start to find open-pollinated seeds is seedsavers.org out of Decorah, Iowa.  This group is dedicated to save and preserve open-pollinated crops.  Another organization you may wish to contact is Bountiful Gardens
http://www.bountifulgardens.org/prodinfo.asp?number=GWH-7580&gclid=CMGwhaekvrYCF

You can collect any open-pollinated seed and it will produce fairly uniform plants and produce.  If you protect similar varieties from cross-pollinating, you can save the seeds for reliable production the next year.  Preventing cross-pollinating often involves "bagging" flowers so that bees and other insects are not allowed to pollinate.  Instead, you pollinate with a brush.  This can get very tedious but is very rewarding for those folks who have a sincere desire and need to save seeds.  Tomatoes, peppers, chiles and eggplants are easily bagged and the flowers pollinate themselves.  Peas and beans are easy as they are self-pollinating.  Just don't plant two different kinds together.  Plant the same variety of corn.  Corn is wind pollinated so if you're near other corn growers, chances are, your crop will be contaminated.  There are many varieties of open-pollinated corn, beans, peas, carrots, greens, melons, cucumbers, squash easily found on the market.  In fact, most of the vegetables I grow, are open pollinated varieties.  Do no use hybrids.  Most hybrid seed packs will indicate that they are hybrids, especially if you see the term F1 after the name of the plant.  Let me give you a seed-saving link and some links to businesses I have dealt with in the past, that deal with open pollinated seeds.  If this isn't enough, let me know.  

Basic Seed Saving  http://www.seedsave.org/issi/issi_904.html
Baker Creek Seeds   http://www.rareseeds.com/
Pinetree Garden Seeds - Vegetables, Flowers, Herbs, Annuals - https://www.superseeds.com/
Gourmet Seeds - www.gourmetseed.com/
Seed Savers - seedsavers.org
Solana Seeds: Welcomesolanaseeds.netfirms.com/welcome.html

This will give you a start.  I hope it helps.
Tom  

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