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Only a few of the many varieties of potato are commercially grown; others are heirlooms.

An heirloom plant, heirloom variety, or (especially in the UK) heirloom vegetable is an open-pollinated cultivar that was commonly grown during earlier periods in human history, but which is not used in modern large-scale agriculture. Since most popular heirloom plants are vegetables, the term heirloom vegetable is often used instead. The trend of growing heirloom plants in gardens has been growing in popularity in the United States and Europe over the last decade.

Before the industrialization of agriculture, a much wider variety of plant foods was grown for human consumption. In modern agriculture in the industrialized world, most food crops are now grown in large, monocultural plots. In order to maximize consistency, few varieties of each type of crop are grown. These varieties are often selected for their productivity, their ability to withstand mechanical picking and cross-country shipping, and their tolerance to drought, frost, or pesticides. Nutrition, flavor, and variety are frequently secondary and tertiary concerns, if a concern at all. Heirloom gardening can be seen as a reaction against this trend. In the Global South, heirloom plants are still widely grown, for example in the home gardens of South and Southeast Asia, although their future is uncertain.

Growing heirloom plants may help increase the genetic variation of crops.

Heirloom growers have different motivations. Some people grow heirlooms for historical interest, while others want to increase the available gene pool for a particular plant for future generations. Some select heirloom plants due to an interest in traditional organic gardening. Many simply want to taste the different varieties of vegetables, or see if they can grow a rare variety of plant.

There is no consensus as to how old a plant variety should be before it can be considered an heirloom. Many gardeners consider 1951 to be the latest year a plant can have originated and still be called an heirloom, since that year marked the widespread introduction of the first hybrid varieties. Some heirloom plants are much older, some being apparently pre-historic. Usually, a plant is not called an heirloom if it is grown widely and commercially, regardless of how old it is.

To be an heirloom, a plant must be "open-pollinated", meaning it will grow "true to type" and produce plants like the parents from seed. This excludes nearly every hybrid. Open pollination allows the same cultivar to be grown simply from seed for many generations.

Typically, heirlooms have adapted over time to whatever climate and soil they have grown in. Thanks to their genetics, they are often resistant to local pests, diseases, and extremes of weather.

Heirloom roses are sometimes collected (nondestructively as small leaf cuttings) from cemeteries, where they were once planted at gravesites by mourners and left undisturbed in the decades since.

In the UK and Europe, it is thought that many Heritage vegetable varieties (perhaps over 2000) have been lost since the 1970's, when EU laws were passed to make it illegal to sell any vegetable cultivar that is not on a national list of any EU country. This was set up to help in eliminating dishonest seed suppliers selling one seed as another, and to keep any one variety true. Thus there were stringent tests to assess varieties, with a view to ensuring they remain the same from one generation to the next.

These tests (called DUS) encompass Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability. But since some heritage cultivars are not necessarily uniform from plant to plant, or indeed within a single plant - a single cultivar - this has been a sticking point. Distinctness has been a problem, moreover, because many cultivars have several names, perhaps coming from different areas or countries (eg. Carrot cultivar 'Long Surrey Red' is also genuinely known as 'Red Intermediate', 'St. Valery' and 'Chertsey'.). However, it has been ascertained that some of these varieties that look similar are in fact different cultivars. On the other hand, two that were known to be different cultivars were almost identical to each other; thus the one would be dropped from the national list in order to clean it up (eg. Onions 'Up-to-date' and 'Bedfordshire Champion' looked very similar, and 'Up-to-date' was dropped. Later, it was found that 'Up-to-date' has very good disease resistance, whereas 'Bedfordshire Champion' does not. Fortunately, 'Up-to-date' is on a seed-saver list).

Another problem has been the fact that it is somewhat expensive to register and then maintain a cultivar on a national list. Therefore, if no seed-breeder or supplier thinks it will sell very well, no-one will maintain it on a list, and so the seed will not be re-bred by commercial seed breeders.

In recent years, progress has been made in the UK to set up allowances and less stringent tests for heritage varieties on a 'B' national list, but this is still under consideration.

• Heirloom tomato
• Forbidden rice
• Bhutanese red rice

• List of organic gardening and farming topics
• Seed saving
• Slow Food
• History of gardening
• Local food

• What is an heirloom vegetable?
• Heirloom Vegetables from the Home and Garden Information Center at Clemson University
• Heirlooms, the Garden Treasury from Vegetarians in Paradise.
• Seed Savers Exchange, a group dedicated to the preservation of heirloom vegetables and flowers.
• The Southern Bulb Co., Dedicated to rescuing and preserving heirloom flower bulbs
• deerproofheirloomflowers.com - heirloom flowers from Appalacia and the stories of the women who planted them.
• Introduction to Heirloom Vegetables

• Gardening with Heirloom Seeds: Tried-and-True Flowers, Fruits, & Vegetables for a New Generation, by Lynn Coulter.
• S. Stickland, Heritage Vegetables (1998), ISBN 1-85675-033-7
• DEFRA - Plant & Seed Variety Guide (accessed 18/08/2007)