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From little acorns (and other tree seeds) mighty oaks (and other trees) grow

Astute followers of the Commenters to our blog will know that James Nguma, an enterprising Kenyan, is looking for scientific names for some trees his group is interested in. 1 James’ comment comes at an opportune moment. Scidev.net summarizes an article by researchers at the World Agroforestry Centre to the effect that African farmers deserve certified tree seed. 2 Why? “To help farmers know what trees they are planting so that they can make informed decisions”, according to the lead researcher. Also today, Eldis Agriculture drew attention to a 2007 report, also from the World Agroforestry Centre, that presented results from a survey of tree-nursery farmers in Malawi. And the point of this post is to ask what the people who wish to plant trees, like James Nguma and Luigi’s MIL, actually want?

My suspicion, although I have carried out neither the desk studies nor the on-site interviews to confirm this, is that they want sturdy saplings of locally sourced provenance that will grow away well and that are adapted to local conditions. Cheaply. How will certified seed serve their needs? And how can nursery owners be helped to supply them with what they need?

A third paper — Innovation in input supply systems in smallholder agroforestry: seed sources, supply chains and support systems — actually supplies answers. But it also sounds a cautionary note:

Lessons from the evolution of smallholder crop seed delivery systems can be applied to tree germplasm supply and indicate that a commercial, decentralised model holds most promise for sustainability. However, current emphasis in agroforestry on government and NGO models of delivery hinder the development of this approach.

The paper is Open Access, so you can read the whole thing and see whether you agree that neither of the two “centralized” models, Government and NGO, is actually the best way to get good quality tree seedlings into the hands of farmers who want to plant them.

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Protecting Armenian vivifying tea

The Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, commonly referred to as the Matenadaran, is well worth visiting in Yerevan. Some of the manuscripts on display are quite stunning. But apparently there’s more to the place than (very) old books. I bought this Vivifying Flower Tea in the gift shop, and the label refers to a Research Center for Medieval Armenian Medicine.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing online about this research center, but there’s clearly a lot of work around on Medieval Armenian medicine, and the role of plants in it. It’s interesting that the concoction I bought is actually protected by a patent (see the label). That’s a different route to the one taken by India, for example. The tea was in fact pretty good, if a bit expensive, though not, if I am honest, especially vivifying. I wonder if any of takings from the gift shop filters back into conservation, of either the tea’s constituent plants or the manuscripts which hold the secret of its manufacture. I suspect not.

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A new database helps you know your onions

A new paper in GRACE from our friends at IPK sent me scurrying to check out a new database. The snappily titled “The Garlic and Shallot Core Collection image database of IPK presenting two vegetatively maintained crops in the Federal ex situ genebank for agricultural and horticultural crops at Gatersleben, Germany,” by Christian Colmsee et al., describes the Garlic and Shallot Core Collection Database (GSCC). This database provides very nice photographs and morphological descriptor information on each accession in said core collection. You can get data on the whole collection, minus the photos, from IPK’s main database. And much the same minus the characterization data in Eurisco, but then you get all the other European Allium collections as well. 3 I haven’t found a way to search either the core collection or the full collection on the basis of specific characterization descriptors but who knows, maybe the photos are enough for most Allium germplasm users. Perhaps someone from IPK can drop us a comment on their future plans for these databases.

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World Food Day deconstructed

Lately we’ve done a fair bit of pointing you to other blog posts that have something worthwhile to say on topics of interest here. You may call this laziness. We call it content curation. And in that spirit I offer you one person’s take on World Food Day, which unfolded yesterday here in Rome and which continues all week with a diversity of talking shops. I’m not going to comment on the commentator, except raise a question about his description of FAO as

[T]he single entity that we rely on the most to inform us about the state of cultivators, what they’re growing in our world, and who isn’t getting enough of those crops as food.

Is it? Really? I’m too deep in to know whether this is a genuine reflection of how people see FAO, and would welcome enlightenment.

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The pomegranate in Armenia

The pomegranate is everywhere in Armenia. And I don’t mean just in the markets. A famous film is named after the fruit. Tea and wine are made from it. And its image features on everything from church walls to tourist souvenirs. I suppose it goes back to pre-Christian mythology, in which it was a symbol of fertility and abundance — something to do with the belief that each fruit contained exactly 365 seeds, perhaps. Anyway, here’s a compendium of pomegranate iconography from my recent trip. Couldn’t get much information on diversity, I’m afraid, how much there is of it and to what extent it is endangered. Something for the next time.