Our Team

James Seedorf

Founder

James is a mechanical engineer by trade, currently designing combine headers for large-scale agriculture—so you could say he thinks about crop harvesting at both ends of the pipeline. He holds an Engineer in Training (EIT) certification and brings a builder's mindset to everything he does, whether it's CAD modeling a new mechanism or wiring up an ESP32-based sensor rig for his grow tent.

Growing up around cash crop farming in Colorado gave James a deep, firsthand appreciation for agriculture at scale. These days he channels that background into hands-on plant breeding from his home setup: deep water culture systems and grow tents full of tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, squash, and mulberries that he's actively selecting and developing. He's endlessly curious about the science behind it all—plant biology, genetic engineering, CRISPR, synthetic biology—and has spent more late nights than he'd care to admit down research rabbit holes, learning everything he can about how to make better plants available to everyone.

That curiosity extends well beyond plants. James is comfortable across the full stack of hardware and software—custom electronics with RISC-V microcontrollers, training machine learning models in TensorFlow, or scripting in Python to automate whatever needs automating. He's also a licensed amateur radio operator (KC3WSX, General class), with a particular interest in digital modes and custom signal processing.

Outside of work and projects, James is a dedicated maker and DIYer. Home remodels, handcrafted furniture, fermenting custom hot sauces—if it can be built, fixed, or improved, he's probably already started. He's a strong advocate for sustainable, community-focused infrastructure, passionate about clean energy and pedestrian-friendly development. Most importantly, he's a family man—married with two kids—balancing an ambitious project list with the beautifully chaotic reality of everyday life.

OpenCultivars grew out of James's conviction that the best plant genetics shouldn't be locked behind patents or paywalls. If you share that belief—or you're just curious—come say hello on Discord.