Episode two of the third season of Free the Seed! the Open Source Seed Initiative podcast

This podcast is for anyone interested in the plants we eat – farmers, gardeners and food curious folks who want to dig deeper into where their food comes from. It’s about how new crop varieties make it into your seed catalogues and onto your tables. In each episode, we hear the story of a variety that has been pledged as open-source from the plant breeder that developed it.

In this episode, host Rachel Hultengren talks with David Podoll of Prairie Road Organic Farm about 'Dakota Tears', an open-pollinated yellow-skinned, firm-fleshed storage onion that he developed.

David Podoll

'Dakota Tears' onion

Episode links

- Prairie Road Organic Seed  https://www.prairieroadorganic.co/

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Free the Seed!Transcript for S3E2: ‘Dakota Tears’ Onion

Rachel Hultengren: Welcome to Episode 2 of Season 3 of Free the Seed!, the Open Source Seed Initiative podcast that tells the stories of new crop varieties and the plant breeders that develop them.

I’m your host, Rachel Hultengren.

This podcast is for anyone interested in the plants we eat – farmers, gardeners and food curious folks – who want to dig deeper into where their food comes from. It’s about how new crop varieties make it into your seed catalogues and onto your tables.

In each episode, we hear the story of a variety that has been pledged as open-source from the plant breeder that developed it.

My guest today is David Podoll of Prairie Road Organic Farm. David is a founding member of the Northern Plains Farm Breeding Club, and has worked with his brother and sister-in-law, Dan and Theresa Podoll, on Prairie Road Organic Seed varieties. Prairie Road Organic Seed is located in North Dakota, and focuses on breeding and carrying varieties that thrive in the Northern Plains of the US and under organic conditions. We’ll be talking about ‘Dakota Tears’, an open-pollinated, yellow-skinned, firm-fleshed storage onion, that David has been working on for the past few decades.

Rachel Hultengren: Hi David, welcome to Free the Seed!

David Podoll: Good morning, Rachel.

Rachel Hultengren: So let’s get started by having you describe ‘Dakota Tears’ for us. What makes it a unique onion?

David Podoll: Well, unique in the sense that there are a few open-pollinated varieties out there. It’s hard to find a good OP variety in a catalogue today. Other than that, how it’s unique is that it’s unique in the same way that every variety is unique. It has the fingerprints of whoever was the breeder and selector of it, and…

Rachel Hultengren: And just to clarify, an open-pollinated variety is in contrast to a hybrid, which is a uniform variety because all of the individuals are genetically identical, whereas an open-pollinated variety is a variety where it’s a population of individuals that are very similar genetically and looking in the field, but are not identical in their genetics.

David Podoll: Right. I mean, open-pollinated varieties have a wider genetic base, or they should, and that gives them more ability to adapt.

Rachel Hultengren: Mmhmm. Are there aspects of your growing conditions in North Dakota or your management that influence what makes for a good onion on your farm?

David Podoll: Well, I don’t know if there’s anything in particular that makes for a good onion. When I started out, I was looking for something that would keep real well, because we wanted to eat as much as we could from our farm and garden. And so I wanted something that would store a long time through the winter in common storage. And um… How I started was I was thinking, “Okay,