Celebrating Genetic Diversity in Plants

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All of us are familiar with the idea of growing our vegetables from seed each year, yet few of us ever think to do so with trees and perennials.  

Nearly every tree, shrub, and tuberous plant you purchase from the store is propagated by grafting, cutting, or some method of cloning, making it genetically identical to the parent plant.  This is excellent for preserving the desired traits of the original, but it comes at the cost of decreased disease resistance and adaptability, loss of unique traits, and more.

Every one of the varietals now commercially available was once a chance seedling that has been continuously cloned to keep it in existence…putting a pause on that plant’s ability to adapt over time.  This is one of the many reasons that Blue Ridge Farm chooses to propagate nearly all of our nursery plants from seed.  We believe that maintaining genetic diversity helps us breed better, healthier, and more adaptable plants that are well-suited to grow in our northern region.

We specialize in growing northern-adapted Appalachian heirlooms such as the Candy Roaster Squash.  Recently, an accidental cross-pollination led to the discovery of exciting new characteristics in this varietal.  The resulting plants produced squash in excess of 40 lbs, with unique shapes and delicious flesh.

We have been working to select and stabilize this new type, breeding for size, quick maturity, sweet flavor, and a silky texture that remains true to the original North Georgia Candy Roaster.

These "Chocolate" peppers were supposedly once used by the Mayans to flavor their traditional chocolate drink, and we have found that this pepper does indeed pair itself beautifully with cocoa.  It has a truly unique fruity-floral flavor and a heat that is hot enough to burn the lips but still leaves you wanting to say, “Please, Sir, I’d like some more.”

We obtained seeds of this pepper from the USDA Seed Bank and are currently working to create a more northern-adapted landrace, selecting for the traits of early maturity, flavor, size, and disease resistance.

The "Purple Hands" Club isn't just for huckleberries anymore!

In 2025, we grew a gorgeous open-pollinated purple dent corn.  This corn was part of a 10-year breeding project by Kevin Bane to create a South American corn that could be grown in North America’s much shorter season.

The original cross began with Peruvian Purple x Hopi Blue, which produced a beautiful corn but took too long to mature. Kevin, in collaboration with a nearby neighbor, then began crossing it with Bloody Butcher and many other corn varieties, selecting for certain traits, and then back-crossing the offspring with plants from the original cross.

The resulting corn was a stunningly dark purple color that could be grown to maturity here in the states.  But what made this corn truly unique and important was that it retained its original aerial root system complete with nitrogen-fixing “goo” - traits that have been bred out of our more modern corn varietals.  In many ways, it is deeply ironic that our society has bred out corn’s ability to fix nitrogen in favor of inundating it with outside chemical fertilizers that end up in our waterways instead.

Appalachian Purple performed exceptionally well in our high tunnel greenhouse, and we plan to continue growing and refining this varietal to be even better suited for our region's short season.

We see a lot of deliciously purple-hued cornmeal in our future…