Nice article!
You might be interested in the Roughwood Seed Collection. A grandfather and grandson have been getting to know their seeds for a few generations, and recently went commercial to the extent of trying to defray some of the costs of curating so many strains.
As you described so well, they maintain some strains, hybridize others, and select for interesting traits all the time. They were breeding one edible strain to be cold-hardy enough to over-winter under plastic film when they noticed that it had
escaped the hoop tunnel for breeding and was naturalizing outside without being seriously bothered by the winter going on around it.
Baker Creek describing Roughwood:
http://www.rareseeds.com/store...
William (the grandson):
http://williamwoysweaver.com/r...
you can buy some unique varieties from them here:
http://www.roughwoodseeds.org/...
