We shared Ultracross Collards with farmers across the southeast to better understand how seed/crop diversity can support resilient farm systems (SSARE R&E grant).

Chris Keeve joined us as our summer research assistant to launch Collard Atlas, which aims to connect plants, people, and place across North Carolina through collards.

In 2023 we published our first edition of Crop Stories, focused fully on collards. A beautiful collection of art, poetry, essay, recipe, and story.

After sharing the Ultracross Collards, lots of people got excited about the purple colors showing up. We decided to lean into this and started to select for more purple in the population.

We saved seeds from the collards that survived a huge temperature swing down to 8F The survivors were tough in the field and tasty on the plate and we started calling them Ultracross Collards (21 parents!).

We participated in a nationwide Heirloom Collard Project trial to grow 20 of the heirloom varieties (we also added Lottie Collard, a special NC Collard).

We partnered with Culinary Breeding Network and HCP for a week long celebration of collards, with lots of great educational programming.

Chris began working with Ira Wallace and Seed Savers Exchange on The Heirloom Collard Project in 2017.