Is the avocado toast?

Jeremy’s latest newsletter saves me including an interesting paper on the domestication of avocado in a forthcoming Brainfood.

The often humid climate of the tropics means that ancient plant remains are few and far between, making it difficult to trace the long-term history of crops there. Thanks to a dry rock shelter in western Honduras, which preserved “an unparalleled sequence of radiocarbon-dated avocado remains,” researchers have now rewritten its ancient history. The paper is paywalled; I found out about it because one of the universities involved has just published a popular account, which in turn led me to an earlier popular report from another of the universities.

Two key milestones emerged. First, people were tending wild avocado trees as far back as 11,000 years ago. And by 7500 years ago, they had begun to select for larger fruits with tougher skins. Those ages reveal a bigger surprise; they predate the arrival of maize. The standard view is that as maize spread to new locations, it transformed foragers into farmers. The new results show that people were “fully engaged in tree cultivation upon maize’s arrival”.

The research also has a message for the modern avocado industry, 90% of whose fruits are of the single Hass variety. Because they are multiplied as clonal offsets, those trees are all genetically identical and thus all equally vulnerable to any pest, disease or climate change that affects them. The researchers point out that farmers grew avocados from seedlings for millennia, and that much of that genetic diversity lingers in remaining relict populations. As Amber VanDerwarker, lead researcher on the study, points out:

Developing new varieties through seed selection of modern domesticates and wild relict populations growing throughout Central America may provide more success in adapting trees to these changing landscapes than clonal propagation alone.

Nibbles: Cherokee Three Sisters, Australian native grains, Ancient Peruvian irrigation, Indian apples, IFOAM Seed Platform, MSB, Chinese conservation, Protected areas, Soybeans breeding, Funding cuts

  1. Three Sisters rematriated to historical Cherokee Nation.
  2. Native grains returning to Indigenous land in Australia too.
  3. May need to bring back agricultural practices too, like in Peru.
  4. Meanwhile, in India, farmers are trying to grow apples in new places. Go figure.
  5. Anyway, seems like the IFOAM Seeds Platform might be able to help.
  6. And genebanks too of course, like the Millennium Seed Bank.
  7. As part of a comprehensive conservation systems, goes without saying, like in China.
  8. Which also include climate-proof protected areas.
  9. It worked for soybeans, after all.
  10. Well, for now anyway…

Nibbles: Nourishing investments, Genebank RoI, Seed science double, Ecuador genebank, Ethiopian genebank, MSSRF genebank, CG genebanks, Botanic gardens, SwissAid saves seeds, Brazil conservation, Indian diner, Kenyan food, Saladino on citrus, Lost apple, Seed Savers, Hybrids, Germplasm crime

Brainfood: Andean chefs, Tricot, Enset ploidy, Minor livestock, NUS meals, Cocoyam breeding, Millets in India, Brazilian fruits, Indian fruits

Finding one’s way through the forest of forest resources databases

As well as the 3rd State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, the 2nd State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture was also launched at FAO Commission meeting the week before last. Some headline numbers? There are about 58,000 tree species worldwide, about 30% of whch are threatened and 1,400 and 1,100 species are included in in situ and ex situ conservation programs, respectively.

At least some of the data behind the forest report is to be found in FAO’s new global information system, SilvaGRIS, launched at the same time. SilvaGRIS joins a fairly crowded field — or perhaps I should forest — which includes various products from the World Agroforestry Centre, the restoration-focused Tree Diversity database, and Europe’s own portal EUFGIS. No doubt each does something different, but a guide through the thicket of resources might be useful.