Uprising Seeds

Brian Campbell, Crystine Goldberg and Eric Budzynski
Bellingham, WA

Brian and Crystine started Uprising Seeds in 2007 to help increase the availability of quality organic and open-pollinated varieties adapted to maritime northwest growing conditions. Their focus is on culinary qualities that are often neglected in larger industrial breeding programs. Prior to focusing exclusively on seeds, they ran a fresh market farm and one of the first Food Stamp CSAs. A sense of social justice in food issues continues to inspire their work.

Eric joined Uprising in May 2015, after four years at Wild Garden Seed. His work focuses on exploring diversity in flavor and culinary utility of crops and improving quality and quantity of open-pollinated varieties. He is equally interested in rediscovering older varieties as working on improving new material. This year he was most excited about introducing a variety of Romanian dill that is traditionally used in desserts in Transylvania.

Some of Uprising's exciting projects include:

LEGUMES: An ongoing project, Uprising continues to trial, both for taste and cool climate production, common bean and other legumes from around the world. They are currently multiplying the most promising varieties from an early-maturing soybean trial in 2015, seeking both edamame and dry soy cultivars adapted to PNW growing conditions. Two beans they offer were started with seed acquired by Lane during a trip to Italy for the 2014 Terra Madre. These include 'Sorana' and 'Cicerchia' .

PUNTERELLE: Uprising is adapting an Italian cultivar for both fall and winter heading at northern latitudes.

SQUASH: Several generations into selection from a crossed population of commercial hybrid Kabocha varieties, they seek to release an improved open pollinated Kabocha variety in coming years. Uprising recently added a beautiful squash to their offerings called 'Zucca Mantovana' which came from seed acquired by Lane.

PEPPERS: 2015 & 2016 trials have yielded several lesser-known pepper cultivars (both hot and sweet) with special culinary qualities that show promise for production in our region. One of these includes 'Elephant's Ear'which has been a winner in Culinary Breeding Network field trials and tastings.

FLOWERS: A focal project of 2016 has been to increase the availability of quality organic cut-flower seed to address the gap between the growth of the local and organic flower movement and the commercial seed supply, still dominated by non-organic international, consolidated production.