Fruits and nuts

November 30, 2011November 30, 2011

The business of bananas and apples

Quite by chance, two items that give insights into the backstory behind the No. 1 and No. 2 fruits in the world.

The always intriguing Nicola Twilley takes her class (Artificial Cryosphere) on a tour of New York’s biggest banana handler. Sure, we all know that the banana is the industrial fruit par excellence, but I guarantee Nicola’s report will open your eyes. And give you a million conversation stoppers, should you ever need them. Did you know, for example, that a recently gassed banana ripening room smells “like a wine-soaked carpet, the morning after”?

Next up, the patented, “managed variety” apple SweeTango®. I heard an interview with journalist John Seabrook at NPR, although unfortunately the New Yorker article that got him invited to talk about SweeTango® in the first place is not available for free. Among several fascinating elements in the story, I was struck by the control that the University of Minnesota is exercising over SweeTango®, which has its own website. Farmers cannot just sell direct to supermarkets or wholesalers. They have to sell back to a consortium established by the University, which aims to keep quality standards high. I wonder how much the University will make on the deal. I also wonder whether, like some of the DOC wines here, excess apples might be found for sale, unlabeled, at the side of a Minnesota county road. And it looks like there’s a lot more to Seabrook’s article than SweeTango®, about apples and apple breeding in general.

November 26, 2011November 28, 2011

Pizzutello: An ampelographer writes

Our discussion of Ruoppolo’s grapes found its way to Erika Maul, curator of the German grape collection and manager of the European Vitis database. ¹ Many thanks to Helmut Knuepffer for facilitating that process and for providing this translation of Erika’s comments.

About 20 years ago I tried the to solve the confusion concerning Pizzutello, Cornichon Blanc, Dedo de Dama, Kadin Barmak, Lady’s Finger Grape, etc. from behind my writing desk. Since this turned out to be impossible, I then introduced grape varieties from different germplasm collections, to get the thing on track. For various reasons, I did not succeed and since then I did not take up the matter again.

However, what appears certain to me is that these grape forms had quite some importance as a curiosity, due to the particular shape of their fruits. (That shape evolves when the seeds do not develop. The well-shaped outer part includes a seed, while in the inner shorter compartment the seed is only rudimentary.) Presumably these forms come from the Near East, and they do not ripen in our northern growing areas — even in warmer summers.

That will make a nice project for someone some day…

November 25, 2011November 2, 2017

Nibbles: Taiwan seedbank, American agroforestry

Taiwan should establish a national seed bank. It says here. But will it be a genebank?
Agroforestry in the USA and in the ancient Maya lands.

November 21, 2011November 21, 2011

Brainfood: Wild lentils, Palms, Iron, Soybean

Field evaluation of resistance to Colletotrichum truncatum in Lens culinaris, Lens ervoides, and Lens ervoides × Lens culinaris derivatives. Wild relatives to the rescue.
Annals of Botany Special Issue: Palm Biology. Way too much to summarize.
Biofortification for combating ‘hidden hunger’ for iron. Reducing antinutrients is not the only, or indeed best, way to go.
Archaeological Soybean (Glycine max) in East Asia: Does Size Matter? Yes, it does. Also age and location.

November 18, 2011November 17, 2011

More on Pizzutello

Our post of a couple of days ago on Ruoppolo’s grapes found its way to an actual grape expert, Anna Schneider of the Istituto di Virologia Vegetale in Italy. I’ve translated her comments below:

I did some research on Ruoppolo and saw that he worked in Naples, so it is indeed possible that the grapes he represented are Pizzutello white, which is actually still grown in Tivoli together with Pergolese and still arrive in the markets of Rome.

On the difference between the painting and the image of the Dedo de dama of Portugal, which is synonymous with Pizzutello, I am not worried: the color obviously depends on environmental conditions, and also the elongation of the berry may be: a) an exaggeration of the artist (who usually tended to exaggerate the more unusual characters, b) intra-varietal diversity (often mostly present in some varieties), c) growing conditions in the absence of “forcing”.

Other synonyms of the same grape variety, which was one of the most popular table varieties in the Mediterranean basin, because of the shape of the berry, to the particular form of the berry, are Cornichon blanc (France), Corazon de cabrito and Teta de vaca in Spain.

These synonyms are the “official” ones; unofficial ones number in the hundreds are hundreds (Galletta, Uva corno, Cornicchiola, Lady finger, etc…)

As a final note, I have a Pizzutello look-alike I recovered in old vineyards that seems a distinct genotype. In fact, it is possible that there is more than one variety with such a berry (and called the same ), although this Pizzutello (Cornichon, Dedo de dama, etc..) Is probably the most widely cultivated both today and in the past and among the oldest documented varieties (perhaps the dactyli grape of Pliny? though as you know such correspondences can never be definitely proven…)

To find out more I would need to do a more thorough search in the literature and among molecular profiles, but for that I would need a little more time…

Many thanks to Anna for taking the time to provide more information than I would have ever have been able to get out of the databases.