Bill Reynolds, Produce and Seed Farmer
by Steve Peters

Producing vegetable and flower seed successfully requires a unique set of practical skills, a great growing environment, a lot of perseverance, and a little bit of luck. Veteran seed grower Bill Reynolds has combined all of these aspects to become one of the key suppliers of organic seed for Seeds of Change over the past eleven years. Like many of the growers for Seeds of Change, Bill did not start out as a seed grower. He began producing garlic over twenty-five years ago on his farm, Eel River Produce, in Northern California. Over the next ten years he paid his dues growing and selling a full range of vegetable crops at farmer's markets all over Northern California. He then moved into wholesaling fresh produce, and in particular tomatoes and zucchini. By 1994 he realized that diversifying was the best way to keep farming profitably, and seed growing looked like an attractive option. He contacted Seeds of Change and was asked to plant a crop of Long Island Brussels Sprout. This biennial produced a bumper seed crop in 1995, and to this day the small amount of seed left from this lot has retained better than a 90% germination rate. This is a testament to Bill's seed growing abilities and having a farm with ideal soil and climatic conditions.

Eel River Produce is located in a truly blessed micro-climate in the redwood region of Northern California along the Eel River, which is the fourth largest river in the state. The warm Mediterranean climate is ideal for both hot weather crops like melons, and cool season crops like broccoli. The long, dry summer to early fall period is perfect for maturing high-quality, disease-free seed. The most amazing fact about this farm is that many crops can be grown without supplemental irrigation. This is largely because the Eel River creates water channels underneath his fields. He plants bare root tomato transplants in early June, and the plants have never needed any additional water in all the years he has farmed. Not only does this save a lot of money, but the flavor is unmatched, and the seed quality is superb.

Bill has worked with a wide variety of vegetable and flower crops and has been successful with almost all of them. One of his specialties has been pole beans, which are a mainstay crop for many home gardens. It has been very difficult, however, to find farmers willing to raise pole beans for seed because of the labor required to construct a trellising system to support the plants. Luckily, Bill is a bit ornery, refuses to give up, and loves beans. He scavenged old redwood fence posts which he cut into thousands of 1x1 inch poles, and along with several miles of baling twine got the job done. He has grown all of our Jack in the Beanstalk, Dow Purple Podded, and Gold Marie Vining beans. He has been rigorously selecting out the green colored off-type beans from the Dow Purple (purple) and Gold Marie (yellow), and now these varieties produce much more uniformly colored pods than with the original seed lots. He has also used this mass selection technique to improve Martian Giant and Three Sisters Tomatoes, Tiger's Eye Sunflower, Nutri-Bud Broccoli, and Red Ruffled Pimiento Pepper. Bill has also produced many types of flower seed including bachelor buttons, calendula, chrysanthemum, cosmos (5 kinds), dahlia, hollyhock, mallow, marigold (3 kinds), nasturtium, snapdragon, sunflower (6 kinds), sweet pea, and zinnia. Other vegetables for seed include beets, soybeans, cucumber, garlic, melon, onion, winter squash, and yacon, plus the herbs German chamomile and cilantro

One of our seed varieties which has become a signature crop for Eel River Produce is the Eel River Melon. This variety has had a fascinating history. Apparently the seed was brought back from Japan after World War II by a cousin of the legendary Humboldt County character Bear Jones, who later became friends with Bill. The fruit from the original Japanese strain was orange fleshed with a smooth outer skin, but was prone to blossom end cracking, even after Bear crossed it with the venerable Hale's Best muskmelon. When Bill received the seed he crossed in other muskmelon varieties and gradually eliminated the cracking problem. Seeds of Change first offered this improved variety in 2000 as the Eel River Melon. It continues to get rave reviews for its unusual creamy texture and delightful flavor reminiscent of ripe peaches.

Like all good seed growers, Bill routinely rogues (i.e. removes) all plants he sees as undesirable, whether they have the wrong phenotype (a plant's physical appearance) or if they lack vigor. He walks his fields daily and really gets to know his plants. Because of Bill's keen interest in improving every seed variety he has grown, he was invited three years ago to attend a Seeds Of Change sponsored workshop "Fundamentals of Plant Improvement for Organic Agriculture" led by Dr. John Navazio. This was a watershed event that raised the quality bar for the primary Seeds of Change seed growers. The resulting deeper understanding of plant genetics led Bill to pursue a zucchini squash breeding project. Being an old zucchini guy, Bill knew how he wanted to improve the zucchinis that were currently on the market. He began by planting in the same field a vigorous, open-pollinated heirloom and a modern hybrid that had beautiful fruits and an open plant habit (desirable for commercial growers) but lacking in vigor. Pollen was allowed to mix freely between these two varieties. The following year, he planted the seed from these initial open-pollinated crosses and intentionally self-pollinated the best plants (i.e. pollinated female flowers with male pollen from the same plant). In the third year he planted several seeds from each successful cross from the previous year, assessed the progeny, and eliminated rows that did not meet the desired criteria. The remaining plants were then allowed to cross-pollinate to produce the next generation of seed. While this project remains a work in progress, we are much closer to having a truly superior zucchini for both the home and market gardener.

All of this activity requires a dedicated team of farm hands. Bill has been lucky to have several local Hmong women (originally from the remote, mountainous regions of northern Southeast Asia) working on his farm for the past ten years. These skilled women perform all the necessary field tasks from planting to seed cleaning in the traditional manner. They also have helped Bill make some of the field selections, such as with the beans. These women represent the unsung heroes of agriculture all over the world that make it possible for all of us to eat as well as we do.

Two years ago Bill purchased a used All-Crop dry seed thresher, which has greatly expanded his seed production capacity. He has outgrown his original twelve-acre farm and is now farming about twenty-five acres to satisfy his passion for raising produce and seed. He is beginning to raise cover crop seed, such as Berseem clover, which fits perfectly into his crop rotation. Eventually he hopes to sell cover crops to other commercial farmers. He still remains passionate about completing the zucchini breeding and would then like to breed for a superior tomato variety. Finally, Bill has been working with younger farmers in the community to pass on his knowledge and assure that the legacy of seed growing continues. We are very fortunate and thankful to have individuals like Bill Reynolds caring for our seed heritage.

Steve Peters
Seeds of Change Commercial Seed Manager

Photo captions: (1) Bill Reynolds with his Goldmarie Vining Pole Beans (2)Eel River Muskmelon