Its frustrating to witness the decline in the genetic diversity of plants. I really get fired up about it. That's why we grow & save heirloom seeds. It really is up to all of us to do our part to preserve and safeguard all that we can. There was an initiative here to start a living museum of all the apple varieties but it didn't get enough support. It certainly feels shameful that all the work our ancestors did to grow and save all of this plant life has been lost due to apathy.
We are going to learn how to graft so we can bring some of these varieties onto our property. I suppose the best we can do is to do something right?
Seed from every apple variety could be stored with the Noah seed bank so the disappearance of thousands of varieties is never repeated.
It's really scary how quickly we have lost/destroyed the genetic diversity of plants, animals. I just read this sobering CBC article that shares some of the bleak stats from the latest UN scientific reports. We do our best to do our part to help. I grow and save only heirloom seeds .. about 19 types of tomatoes this year - keeping it alive in our back yard where we have control.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/un-biodiversity-reports-1.4589698?cmp=FB_Post_News
I applaud your work homesteading, preserving tomato and apple varieties, especially in light of the degradation of the natural environment and the dismal projections of species die off.
This is very worrisome as diversity is a measure of ecological durability and resilience (though not necessarily of vitality which is what is implied by "health"; evidently scientists are not the best with language).