History

July 13, 2009July 13, 2009

Agricultural biodiversity and its perception, then and now

Hanging around the library today, I happened to pick up the March 2009 issue of Economic Botany, and was rewarded with a couple of really interesting papers on people’s perceptions of agrobiodiversity, and how it can be different to what you might think.

The first paper looked at knowledge of apple diversity among cider-makers in the United Kingdom and the United States. ((David Reedy, Will McClatchey, Clifford Smith, Y. Lau & K. Bridges (2009) A Mouthful of Diversity: Knowledge of Cider Apple Cultivars in the United Kingdom and Northwest United States. Economic Botany 63(1):2-15.)) The working hypothesis was that cider makers with a long history in the business would know more apple variety names that comparative neophytes. The results of semi-structured interviews with about 30 informants in Washington State, England, Wales and Northern Ireland suggested that this was not in fact the case. Experienced cider makers do indeed know more apple varieties, but not necessarily by name. They keep track of diversity in other ways, by taste, smell and ecology. The art of cider making lies in the blending, so the maker needs to know what each apple tastes like, on its own and in combination.

Cider makers who have a sense of rootedness to their land often know intricate details about trees in their orchards. They may know the rate at which they bloom, which trees do better in which conditions, or what the sugar levels of fruits will be on a given year. With all this knowledge, why would names have significance?

This would seem to contradict the findings of other studies which suggested that there’s a high degree of correspondence between number of local names and genetic diversity. Names might be lost, but the knowledge of diversity — and, at least for now, the diversity itself — is still there.

The second paper looks at how diversity in grapevines was perceived in the past. ((P. Gago, J. L. Santiago, S. Boso, V. Alonso-Villaverde & M. C. Martinez (2009) Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.): Old Varieties are Reflected in Works of Art. Economic Botany 63(1):67-77. 10.1007/s12231-008-9059-y.)) Its subject is the Baroque altarpieces in Galicia, and in particular the twisted columns known as Solomonic. These often feature grapevine leaves, and the authors measured various morphometric variables on these representations, as well as on the real leaves of numerous varieties maintained in a local genebank. You know the kind of thing. The angle between this and that vein. The depth of the nth lobe.

They found that the representations were often very faithful, and could be used to identify specific local varieties. With a more extensive dataset (that is, more characters, and more altarpieces), it might be possible to reconstruct the history of cultivation of various now rare or extinct local cultivars. Another example of the imaginative sources of data people are looking at to get a handle on genetic erosion.

July 10, 2009July 8, 2009

The road to Pusa Campus

For years I’ve been seeing it in writing: NBPGR, Pusa Campus, New Delhi. But the picture of it I had in my mind turned out to be quite different to the reality. The Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s Pusa Campus comprises offices, labs and staff housing, yes, but also a huge area of agricultural fields, and right in the middle of New Delhi: a rural oasis in the teeming city (clicking on the map below will take you to Google Maps).

It all started in 1934, when the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute, established in 1905 at Pusa in Bihar, was moved to Delhi following an earthquake. Hence Pusa Campus. The institute of course became the Indian Agricultural Research Institute on independence, just like its parent body, the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research, became the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). But many of the buildings are still used. Such as the library.
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July 8, 2009July 8, 2009

“Barley-wheat” explained

There’s a National Agricultural Science Museum on ~~ICAR’s~~ the Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s Pusa Campus ((In a separate post I’ll explain why it’s called the Pusa Campus.)) and I spent an enjoyable hour or so wandering around it during my recent visit to Delhi. One floor takes the visitor on a whirlwind tour of agriculture on the subcontinent from the Neolithic to the Green Revolution. Then you go down some stairs for exhibits on the current state of Indian agriculture. The displays and eye-catching, informative and well-arranged. My only complaint would be about the lack of explicit references to the importance of agrobiodiversity, its conservation and use, for sustainable agriculture, apart from a poster on the Green Revolution. But then the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources has its own museum.

Taking photographs was not allowed, so I can’t show you the wonderful diorama of a Mughal garden, and other great exhibits. I do hope the museum goes online sometime. Best I can do at the moment is this scan of the brochure that is handed out as you leave (click to enlarge).
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July 6, 2009July 7, 2009

PBR dedicated to Tony Brown

Volume 31 of Plant Breeding Reviews is dedicated to Anthony H.D. Brown, the distinguished Australian conservation geneticist. Tony has been making fundamental contributions to the theory of crop genetic resources conservation through his work on sampling strategies, core collections and on farm conservation for forty years. But he has also worked tirelessly in the field, as the following little snippet makes clear:

If you happened to be one of the few vehicles driving the remote dirt Peninsula ‘‘highway’’ in Cape York, north Queensland, in July of 1983, you may have seen three collectors (Ted Hymowitz from Illinois and Jim Grace and Tony from CSIRO) sprawled on the lawn outside the Lakeland pub below the billboard saying ‘‘Ice Cold Beer.’’ This was no early knock off; they actually were sampling rare, tiny Glycine tomentella plants. The billboard had nothing to do with site selection; a collector must check all habitats. The roadside pub, a lone building in the rural landscape, was a haven for the thirsty traveler, and it surrounds a haven for wild plants that grazing animals would otherwise decimate. Thus, sampling strategies for germplasm collection adapt to reality.

You can read the full dedication courtesy of Google Preview. Well worth it. You get to know one of the giants of the field, and there’s a refresher course in the history of crop genetic resources and agrobiodiversity conservation thrown in for good measure.

July 6, 2009July 6, 2009

Frank and the giant peach

While Luigi was getting excited about giant parsley, frequent tipster Dirk Enneking sent word of giant peaches, a much tastier quarry. The great plant explorer Frank Nicholas Meyer traveled widely in the east and sent many collections back to the USDA, his employer. ((Among his many finds is the famous Meyer Lemon, recently reborn as a foodies’ favourite.)) He wrote a wonderful account of his Agricultural Explorations in the Fruit and Nut Orchards of China, published in March 1911 (and, gloriously, available thanks to Google.) Meyer describes the diversity of Chinese peaches, singling one out for special praise.

The best of them all is the “Fei Tau,” or Fei peach, Feitcheng being the name of the village where the orchards are located. These peaches grow to a large size, often weighing over 1 lb apiece, and are of a soft, pale-yellowish colour externally, with a slight blush on one side. The meat is white except near the stone, where it is slightly red. The fruit is a clingstone, with a very large, pointed stone. The skin is very downy. The fruit ripens in the early and middle part of October and has an excellent flavor, being sweet and aromatic. It possesses extraordinary keeping and shipping qualities, keeping until February if wrapped in soft tissue paper. Its shipping qualities are such that it is carried in baskets, slung on poles across the shoulders of coolies, from Feitcheng to Peking, a journey of eight days on foot. So famous is this peach, that it is sent every year as a tribute or present to the imperial court at Peking; and even right on the spot where this fruit grows the most perfect specimens retail at from 10 to 15 cents in Mexican money, a price which is about two-thirds of the average daily wages of the Chinese field laborer.

I want to try one of those! How many of the varieties Meyer mentioned are still available in China?

Two men seated in an orchard of Fei Tau peaches (you can see some of the huge fruits in the branches; click to enlarge). Copyright 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Whether you think Meyer’s comment says more about low wages than high prices, the fact impressed Meyer enough to note it. But why were they using “Mexican money”? Meyer describes lots more peach diversity.

Some of these peaches are blood red and when cut through look more like a beet root than anything else. One variety in Shansi is even called the “Rho Tau,” or beef peach, so much does it resemble meat.

He also mentions flat peaches, red and white, which by the sound of it resemble the ephemeral “Saturn” peaches that briefly show up in the fruit-shops of Rome and can perfume a large room with their scent.

Meyer points out that the Chinese genetic diversity had, and in 1911 still has, a lot to offer growers in the US, and that, after all, was his job, to plunder the resources of another sovereign state and bring them back to improve US agriculture. But has anyone calculated the contribution of Chinese peaches like the ones Meyer noted to peaches in the US and elsewhere? It would be a fascinating and tasty case study.