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Heirloom collards shine in variety trials
The culinary influence of the African diaspora profoundly shaped the foodways of the South , and the mysterious cultural noesis of enslaved Africans on Southern plantations led to the ontogeny and cookery of dark leafy green becoming a regional specialty . These greens have long served an important nutritionary role for Southerners , and a patch of collards could supply essential minerals and vitamins over a long harvest time season . Over the age , growers also saved seed and developed a wide of the mark diversity of topically selected varieties across the South .
found in 2016 , the Heirloom Collard Project aims to maintain this inheritance and fete heirloom collards ( and their history and story ) across the United States . Over the past five years , the project has work up a coalition of germ steward , farmers , gardeners , chef , and source companies to do just that . The project — a collaboration between Seed Savers Exchange , Southern Exposure Seed Exchange , Working Food , and the Utopian Seed Project — was inspired by the work of Edward H. Davis and John T. Morgan as well as collard come savers . From 2003–05 Davis and Morgan move the Southeast and take in over 70 remarkably diverse collard variety from dedicated germ savers . Their piece of work is detailed in the bookCollards : A Southern Tradition from Seed to Table .
Because most of the seed savers contacted by Davis and Morgan were over the historic period of 60 and did not destine to share their come with the next propagation of seeded player savers , the two men meet this collection as an act of saving , safeguarding these varieties for future generation . They donated their sample distribution to the USDA , and in 2016 Seed Savers Exchange requested 60 of the varieties to steward and share via the Heirloom Collard Project .
Figure 1: This chart shows the average yield rating of 18 heirloom collard varieties grown as part of the Heirloom Collard Variety Trial and two control varieties (‘Georgia Southern’ and ‘Vates’) popular in the seed trade today.
The Collard Variety Trial , conducted in 2020 as part of this project , was a collaborative initiative that enlisted 250 gardener and sodbuster around the country to grow and know 18 heirloom collard varieties , some from the Davis and Morgan collecting trip and others independently donated to the Seed Savers Exchange aggregation . This trial allowed growers to link with pieces of the past by learning about these seeds and their story . It also provide crowdsourced data document growing characteristics of these rare varieties , compiled using the on-line trialing platformSeedLinked .
This innovative platform allowed participants to collect information via their computer or smartphone . Participants tracked their smorgasbord over the growing season and range nine different trait : germination , vigor , fruit , show , winter hardiness , mouthful , earliness , disease resistivity , and uniformity . We take these traits to paint a picture of how these assortment perform in gardens and farms around the nation . Participants were randomly assigned three collard varieties to grow in their system . For each trait , participant shit the best and the forged variety . This rating arrangement helped to distinguish the datum so that the variety did n’t all receive an average rating . The datum allow a “ appliance sampling ” of the participants as all participants volunteered to participate and were n’t arbitrarily selected .
The performance of most varieties varied from trait to trait . Some varieties scored richly in one class but low in another . For lesson , ‘ Green Glaze ’ scored high for uniformness , 4 out of 5 , but scummy for earliness , with a score of 1.86 . However , five miscellany scored consistently around 3 for all trait evaluated , suggesting they are stable varieties and performed well across the run in a wide of the mark scope of conditions . Based on our preliminary trial results , these varieties—‘William Alexander Heading , ’ ‘ William Moore , ’ ‘ Brickhouse Old Collard , ’ ‘ Georgia Blue Stem , ’ and ‘ White Cabbage Collard’—appear to perform most consistently in gardens and farm across the United States .
The Collard Variety Trial also included two control varieties common in the seed trade today : ‘ Georgia Southern ’ and ‘ Vates . ’ We included these miscellanea so as to equate the 18 other heirloom to popular varieties widely useable in the seed craft . build 1 show how the yield of the heirlooms compared with that of these standard varieties . ‘ Georgia Southern ’ score above norm at 3.3 ( rate # 8) , while ‘ Vates ’ came in last ( ranking # 20 ) with a score of 2.0 . This suggests that trial participants honor other heirloom smorgasbord — such as ‘ William Alexander Harding , ’ ‘ Miss Annie Pearl Counselman , ’ and ‘ Georgia Blue Stem ’ ( which rate # 1 , 2 , and 3 , respectively)—to be more fertile than the current manufacture criterion . In another trait of interest ( muscularity ) , both ‘ Georgia Southern ’ and ‘ Vates ’ scored above average—3.6 and 3.2 , respectively . However , ‘ Georgia Southern ’ still grade number 6 and ‘ Vates ’ number 7 , which again suggests that the participant observed some heirloom varieties to be more vigorous and other varieties to be less vigorous than the control varieties .
All participants created an account in SeedLinked and self - place as either a husbandman or nurseryman since farmers and gardeners typically have different grow system and different growing end . gardener usually grow plants for themselves , while farmers deal garden truck to their community . We were curious to see if these two distinct groups would rack up the collards otherwise in , for example , the extremely subjective trait of appearing . ( It is authoritative to note that the sampling sizes of these two population were drastically different ; there were 52 farmers and 192 gardeners . )
The top miscellanea for the gardener category were ‘ quondam Timey Blue , ’ ‘ Miss Annie Pearl Couselman , ’ and ‘ Georgia Southern . ’ Fannie Merritt Farmer rate the top varieties as ‘ E.B. Paul ’ and ‘ William Alexander Heading , ’ with ‘ White Cabbage Collard ’ and ‘ Miss Annie Pearl Counselman ’ tying for third place . We can only speculate as to why farmers and gardeners rack up show other than and why both groups scored ‘ Miss Annie Pearl Counselman ’ extremely . But it is important to think of that the diversity in this unequalled group of collards was perceived otherwise by gardeners and James Leonard Farmer .
Figure 1: This chart shows the average yield rating of 18 heirloom collard varieties grown as part of the Heirloom Collard Variety Trial and two control varieties (‘Georgia Southern’ and ‘Vates’) popular in the seed trade today.
In addition to the participants who grew three variety , we also had eight “ full - trial ” situation that grew all 20 mixture . Participants in the full - screening trial scored their varieties on a exfoliation of 1 - 5 , with 5 being just and 1 worst . We received the most data from the Pacific Northwest and South Florida as there were three full - visitation website in the former and one full - trial site in the latter . Taking all trait into account , diverseness rank differently between the two climates . The varieties that ranked in the top five for the Pacific Northwest and South Florida trial web site were different with the exclusion of ‘ Miss Annie Pearl Counselman , ’ which rank third in the Pacific Northwest and tie for third in South Florida . This suggests that some varieties may be advantageously adapted to sure climate condition , whereas varieties like ‘ Miss Annie Pearl Counselman ’ may have wide-cut ingathering . If we look at all traits for all full - test sites , ‘ Miss Annie Pearl Counselman ’ has the highest rating of 4.29 ; however , this is an norm of all scores and does not intend that this multifariousness is superior . When looking at traits in closing off , ‘ Miss Annie Pearl Conselman ’ does not always have the high-pitched score .
Staff at Heritage Farm have also judge each of the 18 heirloom varieties to return a basic profile for our records . In some vitrine , the 2020 trial datum supports this evaluation data , while in some cases it does not . Take , for example , smack . Flavor is a extremely subjective trait as all participants have dissimilar taste buds , but it can also be extremely influence by the environment it ’s grown in or seasonal conditions it face . In the Collard Variety Trial , ‘ Jernigan Yellow Cabbage Collard ’ hit highest with an average score of 4 . Seed Savers Exchange staff agreed on this , describing it as “ sweet with a buttery - like sense of taste . ” It was these tone characteristics , along with its challenging account , that made it a outstanding addition to the Seed Savers Exchange catalog in 2018 . The collard variety with the lowest scotch ( 2.25 ) , ‘ White Mountain Cabbage Collard , ’ was also evaluated favourably at Seed Savers Exchange ’s Heritage Farm in 2017 ; faculty describe it as have a “ succulent , excellent sapidity . ” This is a good admonisher that gustatory modality preferences are highly immanent and very personal — the best fashion to assess the feel of any of these varieties is to grow them yourself and cook them in your favorite collard - centrical dishes .
The 20 collard variety included in the test showed tremendous diverseness . In some pillowcase , scoring the miscellany against each other may have made for an unfair comparison . For representative , how do you fairly compare the appearance of a purple - vein variety to a yellowed cabbage collard when they are so distinct ? For succeeding trials , it may be worthwhile to severalise all yellow sugar collard greens — or all pigmented motley — and focus on the differences within a specific type . We could also take a deeper dive into the culinary traditions of collard greens and exploit with chefs to trial traditional formula . For example , a number of diversity in the Seed Savers Exchange collection have a history of being used to make sauerkraut . These assortment could be raise and analyse for which variety have the best sauerkraut and what specific characteristics stand out in that variety , like the spicery or the texture of the parting .
Katie Miller of Organic Seed Alliance and Melony Edwards evaluate their collards at a full-trial site in Chimacum, Washington.
The overarching goal of the 2020 Collard Variety Trial was to connect growers with seeds of these rare variety and encourage them to grow and experience these varieties for themselves . This year , the Heirloom Collard Project squad is focalise on identify a group of seed stewards dedicate to reform gloomy - amount varieties from the Seed Savers Exchange collecting . With continued re-formation of these varieties , we can continue to apportion even more of them with the larger cum community . As of July 2021 , we have 15 consecrated seed stewards around the country signal up to restore these particular smorgasbord . We are excited to have more seed and more heirloom varieties to partake in through the Exchange , both the Seed Savers Exchange and the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalogs , and other avenues .
Here is alink to the trial dataso that you could manipulate it yourself ! Keep in intellect that this data come in from grower across the state who are growing from their unique systems with their own preferences and personal biases . This data point provides a glimpse , or a snapshot in time , of how these heirloom varieties performed across the area today . We commend choosing the trait that concern you the most and select your hardiness zone so as to get a clean-cut assessment of crop performance . The good way to assess these varieties is to try them out yourself ! These potpourri are available via theExchangeor theSeed Savers Exchange catalog . well-chosen collard produce !
primitively station on July 12 , 2021 , by
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