Category: Neglected species

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Happy Birthday, Prof. Karl Hammer

And sorry for missing it when it actually came, back in February!

He fundamentally contributed to our present knowledge of cultivated plants’ biodiversity in Cuba, Eastern Europe, Italy, Libya, Oman and Korea. As an enthusiastic researcher heading the Gatersleben Genebank and later heading the Agrobiodiversity Department of Kassel University in Witzenhausen, his scientific work covered a tremendously wide field of research in plant genetic resources, ranging from pollination ecology and taxonomy (e.g. of Aegilops, Agrostemma, Brassica, Datura, Secale, Triticum) to questions of plant domestication, genetic erosion and evaluation, maintenance and utilization of the entire spectrum of plant genetic resources, including underutilized and neglected crops.

Many happy returns! Enjoy your retirement!

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Nibbles: Byssus, Crops for the Future, African horticulture, Swine, Seeds, Soils, Phosphorus

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Lost Crops of Africa on air

The National Research Council’s series on Lost Crops … is on our shelves, and well-thumbed too. Now comes news that Voice of America has just launched a five part series reporting on various aspects of the story. The first episode — “Lost Crops” of Africa Could Combat Poverty and Hunger — is online here, with links so you can download and listen to the broadcasts.

Other episodes available are:

It’s odd, though, that in the final episode Professor Damania gives the impression that only two of the CGIAR centres are involved in research on these lost crops. We can think of others…

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Berry genebank the pride of Oregon

There’s a lengthy article in Portland Monthly on the National Clonal Germplasm Repository at Corvallis, a unit within the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA/ARS). It focuses on a couple of the people working there in particular, for example strawberry expert Kim Hummer:

Inside one of these greenhouses, diffused winter light streams through the glass ceiling, illuminating horticulturalist Kim Hummer and her colleagues as they hover over a small potted strawberry plant that, considering its history-steeped neighbors, appears undeserving of so much attention. Devoid of fruit, the plant’s heart-shaped leaves are edged brown, its runner pale red. It doesn’t look much different than any one of the other hundreds of strawberry plants crowding dozens of long tables. Yet Hummer’s voice brims with excitement. “This is a wild decaploid,” she says. “It’s very special.”

Want to know the species, which comes from the side of a volcano on Russia’s Iturup Island? Read the whole thing. There’s a lot, lot more.

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Verdura di campo needs to be identified

In the first warm days of early spring Caterina’s mother — from the generation that lived through the wars — still roams the fields in search of that wonder of wonders… le verdure di campo (wild “vegetables”).

I bet she does. Read all about it in ItalianNotebook, and you’ll be salivating within seconds, like I was.

But fight the urge to rush out and harvest the roadside verges long enough to read the comment made by Barbara Modica at 2:39 pm on May 24th:

In the spring, there is a weed which resembles a rhubarb plant, except it is smaller, has a green stalk and green leaf shaped and about the same size as rhubarb. My husband’s family (from Sicily) boiled the stems, discard the leaves, then breaded them and fried them in olive oil. They called them gardoni (or something similar to that). Are you familiar with them? They are only edible in the spring, later on turn into a tall plant. We carry on the tradition and our grandchildren love them also.

Any ideas?