From the wonderful Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog (a favorite of mine) over at Research Blogging, is a fascinating summary of paper that describes the ways that most modern seed varieties, selected to be used under commercial conditions, don't do as well under organic conditions, because we haven't selected for the qualities that would enable success:
To perform well under organic conditions, varieties need to get a fast start, to outcompete weeds, and they need to be good at getting nitrogen from the soil early on in their growth. Organic farmers tend to use older varieties, in part…
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