Olivia McClure

In February 2020, Kerry Heafner left his office in West Monroe and drove about an hour northwest to the Union Parish hamlet of Marion to carry out one of his ordinary duties as an LSU AgCenter horticulture agent: giving a talk to a garden club.

Heafner’s visit that day, however, took a turn for the extraordinary when a woman named Lula Shurtleff approached him after his presentation.

“She said she had something that I might find interesting — some seeds of a watermelon that she thought had been developed at the Calhoun Research Station,” he recalled.

That got his attention.

Ever since he began working for the AgCenter a few years prior, people had been stopping by Heafner’s office and calling him with inquiries about watermelons from the Calhoun Research Station, a shuttered AgCenter facility in Ouachita Parish that was famous for its fruit and vegetable variety development programs. Many Calhoun varieties had faded into obscurity well before the station closed in 2011.

Yet old timers still spoke with zest about the field peas, pole beans and other crops they had raised years ago using seeds from Calhoun and other stations in the LSU system. Sometimes, Heafner would talk to people who waxed nostalgic about their parents or grandparents growing a particular type of LSU-bred okra or tomato.

The most passionate remembrances, though, came when conversation turned to a watermelon called the Calhoun Sweet, which the station unveiled in 1951. Did Heafner know where they could obtain some seeds?

For a long time, he didn’t. But he wanted to track down seeds of the beloved melon.

“When these people would start talking about this watermelon, they wouldn’t just describe it. Their mouths would start watering,” Heafner said. “I said, ‘Boy, if I ever find this thing, we’re going to get it back out there.’”

Heafner eagerly accepted and planted Shurtleff’s seeds, determining they were the Red-N-Sweet — another sought-after Calhoun release from 1987 and the final watermelon the station put out. Months later in the summer of 2020, Heafner met a Lincoln Parish farmer in his 80s who only recently had stopped plowing with mules. He was happy to share his stash of the elusive Calhoun Sweet seeds.

“He had not known that the watermelon had all but disappeared because he had always saved his own seeds,” Heafner said, “and he did not have to worry about that kind of thing.”

Heafner had grown some Calhoun purple-hull peas in 2019 after getting some seeds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was already curious about the increasingly lost art of seed-saving and about the enduring influence of the Calhoun station. After coming across the two watermelons, that curiosity only grew.

“The more homework I did, the more research I did, I discovered, wow, a lot went on at the Calhoun station,” Heafner said. “And what ever happened to these things that were developed at the Calhoun station? What happened to them, why did they disappear and how can we get them back?”

And so, the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program, as it is now known, was born.

With help from Marcie Wilson, a fellow AgCenter horticulture agent in northeastern Louisiana, and countless home gardeners — both past and present — the program has recovered seeds for about 30 out of 70 LSU fruit and vegetable varieties. Heafner and Wilson also have collected dozens of non-LSU heirloom seeds — and interesting backstories — from families in the area. They share them at events and by request, hoping to get them back into widespread circulation.

“People now come out the woodwork and say, ‘Hey, I have this particular pea or bean or whatever it is that my grandad always grew. It’s been in my family for years. Would you like some?’ And of course we are interested in that very kind of thing,” Heafner said.

‘A very vibrant place in the community’

Heafner took interest in the endeavor for its horticultural merits. But he readily admits his love for history is another motivation.

“I’m kind of a history buff,” he said. So he set out to learn more about the Calhoun Research Station and other places that played a role in creating the crops he was trying to save.

In 1887, President Grover Cleveland signed into law the Hatch Act, which allotted federal funds for the creation of agricultural experiment stations through the network of land-grant universities that had been established 25 years earlier under the Morrill Act. In those early days of agricultural research, LSU operated just a couple of these facilities. Today, there are 14; they have been under the auspices of the LSU AgCenter since its inception in 1972.

The North Louisiana Experiment Station, which was eventually renamed for the nearby Calhoun community, opened in 1888 as one of the first research stations in the state. Area farmers pooled their money to get the station, which sat on a 300-acre tract donated by a local family, off the ground. Right away, scientists planted corn, cotton and soybean trials and orchards of peach and apple trees. Dairy and poultry research later came into the fold.

The station’s most notable accomplishments came through its fruit and vegetable development programs, which saw their heyday in the 1930s and 1940s — largely by the efforts of renowned LSU horticulturist Julian C. Miller, who had breeding trials in both Calhoun and Baton Rouge.

The initiatives were important to their rural constituency. These were people who abided by the concept of “waste not, want not,” who lived at a time when self-sufficiency was a necessity.

“You had to farm to exist,” Heafner said. “You either grew it or raised it or you didn’t have it. There was no such thing as going to a grocery store like there is today.”

Farming one’s own food was just part of the self-sufficiency equation. Making sure a crop could be grown the next year was another. People swapped seeds with their neighbors and passed preferred varieties down through the generations.

“Saving seeds is not just a tradition,” Heafner said. “It’s what families did back in the day so they could ensure that they would have that seed the next year and the year after that and the year after that. It’s food security. Many times, seeds were given as wedding gifts to young couples just starting out so they would have something to start their first crops with.”

Miller and his colleagues released beans, potatoes, collard greens and a myriad of other vegetables that thrived in the Gulf South climate. Even as subsistence farming declined, Calhoun remained relevant. The iconic watermelon development program launched in the 1940s, ultimately yielding five varieties that delighted locals. A popular field pea program produced a long list of varieties in the 1960s and ‘70s.

The station’s last release — the Quickpick pink-eye purple-hull pea — came in 1997. By then, the facility was retooling to focus on forestry work. Many of the LSU produce varieties became hard to come by at feed-and-seed stores, having fallen out of favor among home gardeners in the area.

Heafner has a few theories as to why. People were leaving the country for cities and suburbs, and even rural residents simply weren’t gardening as much as they once did. For those who kept up the custom, seed catalogs and retailers presented the allure of new commercial varieties and modern hybrids. In the case of the Calhoun watermelons, they may have fallen victim to one of their hallmarks: a very thin rind that prevented them from being shipped long distances, limiting them to local markets.

Fourteen years after its final release, the Calhoun Research Station — along with two others in the LSU AgCenter system — closed in 2011 as leaders grappled with deep state budget cuts.

“I still talk to people who worked at the station when they were kids during summers or who remember going to the Calhoun station to get peaches or watermelons,” Heafner said. “It was a very vibrant place in the community.”

Thanks to the old-school seed-savers, he is confident the station’s impact hasn’t been completely lost to time.

“You never know what someone has tucked away back in the freezer,” he said, referring to a common practice of freezing seeds for long-term storage.

Growing the program

Not all seeds can be preserved and used to grow new plants. They must be from open-pollinated varieties, meaning they are pollinated naturally by air, insects or animals such as birds. These kinds of seeds are often marketed as heirloom seeds. They differ from hybrids, which tend to have sterile seeds.

It’s recommended to plant just one variety of each type of vegetable at a time to avoid cross-pollination, which can lead to varieties not breeding “true,” or the genetics no longer being pure.

Wilson and a team of Master Gardener volunteers take the lead on growing plants for seed production on an acre at the AgCenter Northeast Research Station near St. Joseph. She sources seeds from the burgeoning North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program collection along with local gardeners and a USDA seed bank.

“Every year we find something new to add,” she said.

This summer, Wilson grew about a dozen items, including some popular Calhoun and Baton Rouge releases: Quickpick purple hulls, Creole tomato, Green Savage pole beans and, of course, Red-N-Sweet watermelon.

“It has become the crown jewel of the program,” she said.

Wilson and the volunteers harvest the crops and gather their seeds. Some types of seeds — like those from tomatoes and cucumbers — must be fermented in water before storing them, and others need additional drying time after picking. Then, they have to be carefully counted and placed in small envelopes marked with their variety name and the date. Wilson keeps the packages neatly organized in a large caddy.

Lessons from the past relevant today

Not long after Heafner received the Red-N-Sweet seeds at the Marion Garden Club meeting, the coronavirus pandemic struck, shutting down schools and workplaces and interrupting supply chains. Many Americans took up gardening — some motivated by the boredom of being stuck at home, others by concerns about being able to buy essentials at the store.

“If there was a silver lining to the pandemic, I think people developed a new respect for and interest in self-sufficiency,” Heafner said. “Sometimes you go to the store and take for granted what you’re going for will be there. And during the pandemic, we learned that’s not always the case.”

People long ago got through hard times by growing their own food and keeping the seeds. Heafner believes the practice remains pertinent today.

“Plus, you’ll have a wealth of varieties to tap into if there’s a problem with a disease or pest,” he said. “It’s worth having this kind of diversity still accessible.”

He encourages people to do their part to carry on the storied legacy of LSU and other heirloom varieties.

“The best way to keep it from going nearly extinct is to grow it. And home gardeners are always looking for that next best thing — what grows well in our climate? Well, all of this,” he said, gesturing to stacks of seed packets sitting on a table.

“A lot of work went into developing these varieties,” Wilson added. “Just from the evaluation of growing them out, we’ve noticed that they’re very disease resistant, pest resistant, heat and humidity resistant as well. We’ve honestly never had any trouble with any of them, so it is hard to imagine why these went away. They’re just special in that way. Because they were developed for Louisiana, the history is in Louisiana — and I think just for that alone, it’s worth preserving that history of this food culture.”

Olivia McClure is a writer, editor, photographer and videographer in AgCenter Communications.

This article appears in the summer 2024 edition of Louisiana Agriculture magazine.

Seed Saving Tips

Marcie Wilson

Seed Saving Do’s and Don’ts:

• Save seed from pest and disease-free plants.

• Save from prized and characteristic fruit (those with great flavor, size, vigor).

• Allow seed to fully dry in a single layer on a nonstick surface before storing.

• Do not dry seeds in oven or dehydrator.

• Follow population guidelines to maintain genetic integrity of heirloom varieties.

• Remember to properly label seed with crop, variety, date collected, and notes. You’ll thank yourself next year!

• Do not plant crops of the same species within isolation distance parameters if collecting seed. For example, different varieties of watermelon should not be planted any closer than one-half mile. Remember that species will cross with other species!

Drying and Storage

• Let seed dry in a single layer on a waxy paper plate with a fan on, or turn the seeds daily to prevent mold forming.

• Snap test: If a seed can be snapped in half, it is dry enough to store.

• Seed envelopes, plastic bags and jars are all acceptable storage vessels.

• Silica gel packs, rice and powdered milk can help reduce moisture accumulation.

• Dry storage: A cool, dark, dry place.

• Cold storage: In 35 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Freezer storage is not ideal for home use. The container must be airtight, and thawing and refreezing can be a problem. However, it is good for long-term storage.

• Preferred method: In seed envelopes stored in photo box on a shelf.

Marcie Wilson is a horticulture agent in the AgCenter Northeast Region.

Video by Olivia McClure

LSU AgCenter horticulture agent Marcie Wilson holds Green Savage pole bean seeds that are part of the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program May 30, 2024, at the AgCenter Northeast Research Station. Photo by Olivia McClure

LSU AgCenter horticulture agents Marcie Wilson, left, and Kerry Heafner hold a caddy of seed packets while standing in a garden used to grow plants for seed production for the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program. Photo by Olivia McClure

LSU AgCenter horticulture agent Marcie Wilson sorts and packages seeds that are part of the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program. Photo by Olivia McClure

LSU AgCenter horticulture agent Kerry Heafner displays a photo of Ruby Jane Green Savage, who shared pole bean seeds with renowned horticulture professor J.C. Miller, who in turn used the seeds to develop new varieties. Some seeds that are descendants of the original Savage beans are in the cup sitting on the table. Photo by Olivia McClure