Category: Neglected species

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Weaver ants protect mango and cashew crops

Farmers in Benin harvest fruit of far higher quality if they allow weaver ants (Oecophylla longinoda) to infest their mango (Mangifera indica) trees. Scientists at the CGIAR’s Inland Valley Consortium noticed that fruit-fly damage was lower in trees where weaver ants were abundant. So they arranged to exclude ants from trees on six plantations. The results were very encouraging. ((Paul Van Mele; Jean-François Vayssières; Esther Van Tellingen; Jan Vrolijks. Effects of an African Weaver Ant, Oecophylla longinoda, in Controlling Mango Fruit Flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Benin. Journal of Economic Entomology 2007, vol. 100, no. 3, pp. 695 – 701.)) Farmers who tolerated the ants can manage without pesticides and are able to sell their mangoes into the lucrative European organic market. The scientists reckon it takes just a day to teach farmers about the benefits of weaver ants, and are planning to take their ideas to East Africa and Asia.

There is just one downside. The ants bite. But that can be avoided by harvesting the fruit with poles instead of by climbing the trees. ((There are further write-ups at Scidev.net and The Economist.))

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The Breadfruit Story

That’s the title of just one of the sections of an exhibition of botanical watercolours, books and prints about the Caribbean called “Paradise in Print,” currently on at the New York Botanical Garden. The story it refers to, of course, is that of Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian and the Bounty.

For an update on the story of the breadfruit’s global journey, go to VOA News. You’ll find an interview with — and a cooking demonstration by — my friend and world breadfruit expert Diane Ragone, director of the Breadfruit Institute at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens in Hawaii (both text and video).

The Breadfruit Institute maintains the world’s largest and most complete breadfruit germplasm collection. Diane has dedicated her life to the breadfruit, and in particular the idea that it can make a much greater contribution to the alleviation of hunger around the world. She and her research partners have been working on a tissue culture technique for the mass propagation and safe transfer of germplasm.