Category: Featured

Eve Emshwiller sets Between the Lines straight on this whole oca thing:

The Andean tuber that has an effect on testosterone is not oca, Oxalis tuberosa, but another Andean tuber that looks even more like oca than potatoes do: Tropaeolum tuberosum, which has several common names in different parts of the Andes, such as mashua, añu, and isañu.

So many Andean roots and tubers, so little time…

Theo is unrepentant about picking on the dead souls in the wild leeks drawer, and throws down the gauntlet:

How many of the one point four million accessions in Europe actually exist, how many are alive, how many of these are available for distribution (sufficient seed), and how many of these are actually distributed on request? And what should we aim at in this regards? We should organise ourselves, identify the difficulties and try to take them away — as a community. We can’t do that by pretending everything is perfect. Let’s get some clothes for the emperor!

And Lorenzo is ready with needle and thread.

Tom Payne of CIMMYT has a question:

I was wondering if you had ever come across pre-breeding within a crop wild relative species? Not the intercrossing of CWRs with cultivated species, but (for this example) the intercrossing of T. timopheevi accessions to reveal enhanced levels of additive genetic variability, perhaps selecting materials for specific cytoplasmically controlled traits? Thus, from a very limited pool of X number of accessions, Y more accessions could be derived increasing the amounts of materials available to users.

Any takers?

When is a genebank not a genebank? When it is a collection dedicated to genetic study? Isabel Lapeña has some additional information and links on the avocado, cherimoya, lúcuma and mango at La Molina in Peru, which may or may not be genebanks and may or may not be threatened by office development.

A day after the TV program the Ministry of Agriculture declared that the project to construct the Ministry offices would not affect any “genebanks”. The issue here is that they may try to “des-clasify” the area as a genebank to avoid opposition. To my point of view the declarations are quite “pitiful”

Matthew Dillon, of Seed Matters, starts off gently enough on the subject of saving seeds …

It’s very difficult to tell a complex story to a non-professional audience. I think the question is: is it better to tell a story that lacks nuance and deep facts in order to initiate conversation that might lead to a public more informed on ag policy, or is it better to not tell the story at all and let the same group of professional/advocates be the only ones in the conversation?

But then he sticks the boot in, a splendid sight to behold. So behold it.