Luigi Guarino

Following my post pointing to a recent article in the Guardian which worried about the fate of the UK’s National Fruit Collection at Brogdale, I’ve been alerted to the discussion that’s been going on at the Fruit Forum, “a webspace for fruit enthusiasts.” Stay tuned…

LATER: See also Lorenzo’s comment to Danny’s post for more information on what’s going on in the European apple world.

Fresh Nibbles

China is building its germplasm collection at the National Frigid Zone Crop and Soybean Germplasm Resources Mid-term Bank in Harbin. Cool.
Driscoll’s helped build China’s blueberry industry, then discovered that knowledge, infrastructure and genetics have a habit of escaping. Not so cool.
Meanwhile, the Philippines wants its rice collection to hit 21,000 varieties by the end of the year. IRRI unavailable for comment.
Italy is establishing a major global olive genebank. Unclear where it fits in with other major global olive genebanks, but some redundancy is good.
FAO showcases Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, where crops, landscapes and traditional knowledge have survived together. Like olives in Italy, I guess.
The mangelwurzel is making a comeback, because apparently forgotten root vegetables just need better publicity, and not a fancy GIAHS.
Ohio growers are trying to save the pawpaw just as Americans are discovering it, partly because of better publicity.
BeanGPT is bringing AI to breeding and farming beans. Maybe it can help the mangelwurzel and pawpaw too?

Published on September 23, 2026

Author: Luigi Guarino

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