Ten More Years?

Forty Years Ago : https://mailchi.mp/33674b987881/forty-years-and-hoping-for-more?e=8827d243a2

Forty years ago my journey with these cottons  began when I found a paper lunch bag filled with caramel colored seemingly magical seed cotton in my boss's greenhouse drawer. 

I began telling some of the stories of this journey on social media (on Instagram they can be found @vreseis and on facebook under Foxfibre® Colorganic® ) beginning on December 26, 2020 marked with numbers beginning with 1.0. I had the goal of writing a post a day, pretty much no matter what, and stuck to it.  Until I got to the part where everything sort of fell apart for the industry(along with my business) which forced me to reimagine and reassess how I would go about bringing these cottons into industrial usability. Which indeed remains the focus of both the research and how and why I operate my business that funds it all. 

During this time of reflection my cousin Melanie Robertson was taking a film class at City College of San Francisco. The course assignment was to produce a short documentary and she proposed to her professor that she make my work the subject, as she had been following my storytelling on the series of social media posts (which of course are all still there, you just have to scroll way way back and look for the numbered ones). She worked with another student: Eduardo Maia, who edited it. They put together a film that ended up being shown at The Sonoma International Film Festival in the Environmental Shorts Division. They plan to do a longer version this Fall when I have new plants to show and it is not too hot to even think clearly (at least that is my excuse for having a hard time putting thoughts into words).

Here is the link to their work.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9LlOnR7KUY

Please don't take the percentage losses of the textile industry as exact, as I was more involved in the spinning portion of it. But the idea remains sound. All those mills around the world who had just invested millions of dollars installing equipment that cleaned up their dye waste enough to pass modern clean water standards were rewarded by their once loyal customers, with being dumped for products produced in places without such regulations. The very same parts of the world that also seemed to have lax labor laws. The results were far lower costs of production. The prices of the finished products did not become apparent to most consumers until "fast fashion" revealed what sort of profit margins the brands rather quickly became accustomed to and dependent upon.

Cotton such as this, whose color grows from within, no longer had any manufacturing advantage whatsoever. And within only a few years every one of the 38 mills around the world that I had been selling to closed their doors. My customers did not "move offshore". They tragically went out of business. As did I. The 1990's were a rough time.

I will be getting back to telling the story, from those rough times to the present later this summer.

This year, thanks to your support through purchases and donations, I have planted a wonderful breeding nursery on 6 1/2 acres. Included in it is a section that I will offer walking tours of covering the history of extra long staple cotton breeding. Beginning with Egyptian and Sea Island cottons and onto the Pima cottons of the 1990's. These cottons are precious to me because they were who I turned to to increase the spinning qualities of these cottons of color way back in the beginning of this work. I have come to love them and by growing them and observing what classical breeders worked towards over 100 years gives me inspiration. I would like to share these observations with you. Either in person or virtually. Tickets for the walking tours will be on sale on my website beginning in September. 

Lastly, it is my sincere hope and dream, that I will be granted more years of health so that I can continue to work with these cottons as a breeder. In order to keep at this, though, things really must be easier for me to manage as I age. This year I took out some hefty loans to invest in upgrading expensive pieces of equipment on my farm, with that goal in mind. The first was the Precision Weeding System, which made all the difference this season for me. The second was electrifying the ag well. Both of these improvements were a stretch. If anyone wishes to chip in, here is the link to the donation portal on my website : https://www.vreseis.com/shop/donate-to-the-breeding-program-1. As the bills exceed what revenues I can expect to see from what I am producing for sale to mills and what I offer retail on my website.

With that reality in mind I continually strive to come up with ideas for special gifts to send with particular levels of donations in the hopes of letting people know how grateful I am for the support shown in so many ways, over so many years. A fun new one is the F1 seeds that I now know will germinate. As they have grown so beautifully this year. Both in the greenhouse and in the field. If you have ever been interested in growing a specimen plant to keep alive for years (provided that you are in a non cotton growing area), this may be a fun gift for you. For as long as the plants do not experience a freeze, they will live on and on. Producing beautiful flowers and fiber for years. Here is a photo of what the F1 hybrid flowers in this group will look like.

Photos can be seen in the link

And lastly, I wanted to show what a difference this sort of precision weeding can make. Here it is with only the knives at work. When a skilled person is steering the system, so that the implements can get close to the seedlings, the effect is monumental. As with the normal cultivation system and my old equipment and a good 8" must be left open so as not to injure the cotton plants by accident.


Here is the second pass of the precision system.

Now take a look at what the field looked like a few years ago when I did not have such a system.



These plots in 2016 had been cultivated many times, but still had to be hand weeded, plot by plot. It was so exhausting and discouraging. and frankly, I am amazed that I was able to do it. But no way can I work like that anymore.



This is the 2022 nursery a few weeks after the second run through with the precision system. It was hand weeded once. There was a freak freeze on May 11, 2022 that killed any seedling that had emerged. Which is why there are skips. But there were enough seeds that had not sprouted yet to allow the breeding program to live on.



These special plants are growing beautifully now, and I post frequent updates on the crop on social media.

I will try to write newsletters more often. I realize that it has been quite sometime since I sent a mailing out.

Thank you again for supporting this work that I have been able to do for 40 years now. Hoping for ten more- wish me luck!

Sally