Avocado domestication and iconography

I took advantage of the thirteen hour flight to Lima to catch up on some reading, including a recent paper reviewing the state of knowledge on avocado diversity and domestication. ((Mari­a Elena Galindo-Tovar, Nisao Ogata-Aguilar and Amaury M. Arzate-Fernandez (2008) Some aspects of avocado (Persea americana Mill.) diversity and domestication in Mesoamerica. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 55:441-450. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10722-007-9250-5.)) The authors postulate that avocado exploitation began in Central Mexico with the gathering of fruits from the forest, possibly as long ago as 8000 BC. Then, when the climate changed for the worse around 4500-2000 BC, people began to tend and cultivate the tree in forest gardens. The final phase was one of intensive cultivation in homegardens and active dispersal around the region and into South America.

That’s all very interesting, but the thing that really stuck with me was the observation that the avocado tree is represented on Hanab-Pahal’s sarcophagus from Palenque. Not on the famous “astronaut” lid, however, but on its side. Ten ancestors are seen around the sides of the sarcophagus, arising from a crack in the earth, each with a fruit tree, forming a sort of homegarden around the dead king. Among them is Lady Olnal, and she has an avocado tree. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a picture of this on the internet. But the reason it struck me is that I’d just been looking at photos of more recent, and geographically somewhat distant, but no less botanical, funerary art. Even in death, people of all ages and cultures like to be surrounded by plants, it seems.

And, being in Peru, all this rumination about art and agrobiodiversity couldn’t help but remind me of Marcos Zapata’s painting of the Last Supper in Cuzco Cathedral (1753). That famously features roast cuy, but check out the thing to the left of the cuy’s head. Is it a maca? What other crops can you identify? Donwload the full-sized version on the photo and see. No avocados, alas.

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Malaria pics

I don’t think you need to have had malaria to be profoundly moved by John Stanmeyer’s photographs for National Geographic ((Via BoingBoing)), though no doubt it helps. The New Agriculturist gathered some thoughts on the link between malaria and agriculture some years back. I picked up my dose here:

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But I didn’t have to cope with it while also trying to grow enough food for my children. And talking of pictures on watery themes, check out these from the BBC on a Nigerian (cat)fishing festival.

Recommendations of the Underutilized Plants Symposium

This just in from Hannah Jaenicke, Director of the International Centre for Underutilized Crops (ICUC): 

Over 200 delegates from 55 countries gathered in Arusha, Tanzania 3-7 March 2008 for an International Symposium on “Underutilized plant species for food, nutrition, income and sustainable development”. The Symposium was co-convened under the umbrella of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) by the International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC) with the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species, Bioversity International, GlobalHort, Plant Resources of Tropical Africa, and the World Vegetable Center, whose Regional Center for Africa was the local host.

The symposium was a resounding approval of the need for a working group on underutilized plant species to provide a voice to those who are working on these plants. The delegates endorsed the International Society for Horticultural Sciences’ working group on underutilized plants, which is co-chaired by Dr Hannah Jaenicke of the International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC) and Dr Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon of the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species (GFU), and filled it with life and suggestions for future collaboration on research and development projects. A report will be published and circulated in the near future.

Following three days of over 150 scientific presentations, the participants developed a series of recommendations around four pertinent issues.

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