I am running a very tiny seed operation that has recently taken a different turn of events. Personal reasons have caused me to lose most of my seed production land. I dearly want to continue what I do. I provide a niche market for vegetable varieties that are not the norm of what can be purchased at a local nursery. In short, the more unique and colorful, the better for me and hopefully you the gardener. For example, how much red sweet corn or white cucumbers does one find. Not many if at all.

I am now in a situation where I cannot both evaluate new varieties and produce seed of them. I am also getting into a bit of pea breeding (I have a master's degree on the subject incidentally). Rather than let the OPs I find and grow die, I would much rather find a way to produce the seed I need while maintaining the purity of the genetics.

This is where I see very few options and need some help. One solution could be to have contract seed production, but like I mentioned, I am a very tiny operation (just me) with very limited capital and sometimes limited parent seed to increase. I'm not sure where to look for very small scale seed production. I'm talking 50-300 plants max not thousands. Internet searching has come up empty. I am wondering if there would be a way to get some volunteer help or some type of exchange for seed production in very isolated areas.

If anyone has an interest in helping out or you know of a way I can continue to produced seed with minimal cost let me know. The purpose of my venture is just to make enough money to go out to dinner once in a while. I'm more interested in finding and propagating that which is the most unique/rare.

Thanks