Seed Savers Exchange Secures USDA Grant to Expand Nationwide Gardening Trials

From the big stories to the little moments, your support helps us cover it all. DECORAH — Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) is participating in a multiregional collaborative initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to strengthen organic vegetable breeding, improve trial networks and accelerate the adoption of organic varieties across the country. The initiative, titled "From Seed to Market: A Multiregional Collaborative Infrastructure for Organic Vegetable Breeding and Variety Adoption," is led by Dr. Julie Dawson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Partners include UW-Madison, Seed Savers Exchange, SeedLinked and Oregon State University's eOrganic program. Funding comes through the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture's Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative, which supports research, education and outreach addressing the needs of organic agriculture. The grant will support three initiatives at Seed Savers Exchange: Sustaining and expanding the ADAPT network: SSE will continue operating its community science trial program, ADAPT, for the next four years. Through its partnership with the SeedLinked platform, SSE will collect data from gardeners and farmers evaluating heirloom varieties side by side in real-world growing conditions. Upgrading genebank data access through GGCE: SSE will migrate its extensive genebank characterization and evaluation data to the Global Crop Diversity Trust's GGCE system. The upgrade will make decades of variety data collected by SSE staff publicly accessible through Genesys, giving breeders, researchers and growers tools to select varieties suited to specific regional challenges. Developing a genebank-to-catalog commercialization pipeline: SSE will identify promising heirloom varieties from its genebank collection, evaluate their performance under organic growing conditions through ADAPT and track top-performing varieties for potential inclusion in the Seed Savers Exchange catalog. "Seed preservation is a shared effort, and this partnership shows what we can accomplish by bringing gardeners, researchers and conservation organizations together," said Mike Bollinger, executive director of Seed Savers Exchange. "We're excited to continue this work with UW-Madison and invite more people to help document and shape the future of our food crop diversity." ADAPT participants grow varieties from the seed bank in their own gardens and report on characteristics such as flavor, yield, earliness and disease resistance. Their observations help SSE understand how varieties perform across different regions and growing conditions, informing seed regeneration, distribution priorities and future catalog selections. Participants choose the crops they would like to trial and receive three randomly assigned varieties to grow side by side. SSE provides seeds, plant labels and instructions. Participants submit their observations through SeedLinked. "Every garden offers an opportunity to learn something new about the seeds in our care," said Vivian Bernau, Ph.D., preservation director at Seed Savers Exchange. "The observations participants share help us better understand these varieties and make informed decisions about how to preserve and share them." Get involved in 2027Gardeners interested in participating in the 2027 growing season should complete the ADAPT interest form by Dec. 31, 2026. SSE will contact interested growers in early January with available trials and participation details. Watch a video about ADAPT to learn more. Questions about the program can be directed to comscience@seedsavers.org. About Seed Savers ExchangeFounded in 1975, Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit organization based at Heritage Farm near Decorah. The organization preserves America's culturally diverse and endangered garden and food crop heritage by collecting, regenerating and sharing heirloom seeds, plants and stories. Through seed conservation, education and a community of gardeners and seed stewards, Seed Savers Exchange keeps these varieties growing for future generations. Learn more at seedsavers.org. From breaking news to community stories, get the latest in your inbox.