Category: Featured

The Ceora grasspea story has generated quite some response. Dirk has an answer to the problem of documenting the pedigrees of new varieties:

The simplest solution is to ask breeders when they decide to publish their pedigrees (some may have good commercial reasons not to), to reference any of their parent material, which originated from gene bank collections, with the original donor’s ID numbers.

Jeremy wants to know about DOIs. And you can also hear from Ceora’s main breeder, Colin Hanbury, that some things will probably remain a mystery.

Alum quite rightly points out that our memory was faulty with regard to a recent paper on the lexicography of the cucumber’s spread into Europe:

I don’t think you’ve blogged on this cucumber paper. We had one recently about their appearance in French and Italian texts that cued up the next paper on routes into Europe.

To recap, that latter paper suggests that according to the lexicographic evidence the cucumber…

…was introduced to Europe [from the Indian subcontinent after 500 CE] by two independent diffusions. One diffusion appears to have been overland from Persia into eastern and northern Europe and preceded the Islamic conquests. The other, subsequent diffusion into western and southern Europe, was probably by a mostly maritime route from Persia or the Indian subcontinent into Andalusia.

The earlier paper, by the same authors, tells us about what happened subsequently, in medieval times once the cucumber had gained a foothold in Europe:

The absence of melon in some manuscripts and the expropriation of the Latin cucumis/cucumer indicate replacement of vegetable melons by cucumbers during the medieval period in Europe.

Gregory Vaughan has news for fans of oca, and other Andean roots and tubers.

I just got back from the Parque de la Papa, and it turns out that they are indeed in the midst of a new repatriation of something like 78 accessions of virus-free oca (I think it’s just oca, with no mashua or ulluco yet) from CIP. They have transferred the vitro plants to soil bags that they are raising in a sterile greenhouse.

If anyone is interested, I’m working on a project with the UPTC in Tunja, Colombia to investigate and promote our local varieties of these tubers and other native Andean crops.

And yes Gregory, we’re interested.

SLNRao regrets the mistakes of the past, but sees a bright future ahead for grasspea, and its relatives:

Looking at the likely benefits of Homoarginine on the cardiovasculature and emerging concepts on ODAP itself I am of the firm belief that grass pea in coming years will turn into a rich man’s pulse.

Clare Trivedi reassures Dave Wood on Kew’s ABS policy:

I know it may be a little buried in the Kew website but we have a very well-established Policy on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing which covers all aspects of acquisition, use and supply of plant material.

And to avoid you digging around for it, Dave, here it is.