Minnesota Dwarf Long Pod Green Okra
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Abelmoschus esculentus
Seeds per packet ~ 20
Germination 95%
This okra came to us via the USDA's Plant Genetic Resources Conservation Unit in Griffin, Georgia, care of Experimental Farm Network and Nate Kleinman. It was donated to the USDA in 1964 by the then-Minnesota-based seed company Northrup, King & Company. They were early advocates of hybrid corn and had a big impact on changing the law to allow patents on difficult to produce hybrids (laws that have been grossly expanded and abused to allow the patenting of traits and encouraged the development of GMO crops that serve no purpose other than improving some company's bottom line).
Northrup King launched a "Polar Brand" of northern-adapted vegetables. It's possible this variety of okra was one of those, as it's quite an early okra, but we can't find any information on this variety beyond what the USDA recorded. Just four years after donating this variety to the USDA, in 1968, Northrup King began selling shares of itself on the stock market. Going public led to major growth, but then a down year in 1975 led to them being swallowed up by a Swiss pharmaceutical company called Sandoz, Ltd. In 1997 — heralding an era of consolidation in the food and seed industry the likes of which we've never seen — the Northrup King brand was subsumed into the agri-business giant Syngenta. A cautionary tale, to be sure. Thankfully this lovely okra remains to tell it.
Our seed was grown by Ujamaa grower Lina Bird in Maryland. Since there are quite a few okras called "Dwarf Long Pod Green" out there, we have added the geographical descriptor "Minnesota" to the front of it, to distinguish this strain from any other.
