tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111686352024-03-19T04:47:02.860-04:00The Fruit BlogA discussion (if any one comes along to discuss with, otherwise it's more of a monologue) of fruit and fruit breeding.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger330125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-54946248798955943662011-05-29T03:39:00.004-04:002011-05-29T03:44:19.049-04:00Jackfruit article grumblings...I think I'm becoming the Curmudgeonly Fruit Lord, but this bugged me:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=80409">Philippines: Unconventional breeding yields sweeter jackfruit</a> (Freshplaza)<br /><br />The article talks about "unconventional breeding", as though it was some novel, exciting approach. Yet when you read further, it turns out that "unconventional breeding" consists of driving around and looking for good-looking plants. That's neither novel nor breeding. Selection is a part of breeding, but it's not all there is to it. <br /><br />And then we're supposed to be impressed that it was "developed" in just three fruiting years. Except of course they didn't actually develop anything...just picked a winner from the existing options.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com451tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-1294153687251164302011-05-29T03:36:00.001-04:002011-05-29T03:37:54.195-04:00Oh, and hi.Good to see you all. Hope you've all been well. Things are fine here. Just stopping by.<br /><br />Don't get your hopes up about lots of posts, though. Just getting a little something out of my system.<br /><br />But you never know...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com208tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-3761650677852361352011-05-28T23:12:00.006-04:002011-05-29T03:36:46.865-04:00Plant Patents Bad for Innovation?I don't actually think so, but that's the conclusion of this story:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.dailyyonder.com/rose-history-punctures-patent-argument/2011/05/06/3313">Roses Puncture the Case for Plant Patents</a> (The Daily Yonder)<br /><br />And the study it cites:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nber.org/chapters/c12362.pdf">Did Plant Patents Create the American Rose?</a> (NBER)<br /><br />The idea behind plant patents, really all patents, is to encourage innovation. The concept is that if you provide developers of new varieties the means to protect and profit from their creations, you provide an incentive to put in the effort it takes to create a new variety. <br /><br />This article cites a research project by the National Bureau of Economic Research, however, that claims that this has not actually been the case with plant patents, using rose varieties as an example. I don't actually agree with their conclusion, or the reasons behind it (and yes, I have a serious bias here: without plant patents I wouldn't have a job, a point I will return to). But allow me to discuss their reasons for a bit:<br /><br /><b>The number of roses registered by U.S. breeders actually went down when the plant patent law was enacted in 1931.</b><br /><br>This is not surprising at all. Without a plant patent law, breeders depend on novelty and availability to drive purchases. For example, say you're a breeder, and you've spent $1,000 to develope three new varieties, A, B, and C. A is clearly the best, so you name it, say 'Agatha', and you sell it to your friendly neighborhood nurseryman for $1,000. He pays you that because he's hoping to attract customers as the only nursery featuring 'Agatha'. That may be the last you see out of it, though, because your nurseryman can now propagate it all he wants, and so can any one else who buys it from them. Pretty soon there really isn't any incentive for anyone to pay for anything but the propagation, because the nurseryman, his customers, and any other nurseries who propagated it from his customers, now have it. So you, the breeder, need to keep eating, so you release the next best, B, name it 'Brilliant', and sell it to your friend the nurseryman. This time he might not pay you quite as much, seeing as it's not as good a variety, say $750. And the same thing plays out--people buy 'Brilliant', people swap cuttings, rival nurseries get cuttings, and pretty soon you can buy 'Brilliant' anywhere. They buy it even though 'Agatha' was better because their only source of information on it is the nurseryman, who has no incentive to tell them anything about it and will probably hype the hell out of it, because he's got an exclusive for the moment. Finally, in dire need of cash, you release C, called 'Carbuncle', which kind of a crummy variety. The nurseryman thinks maybe a few people could be conned into buying, so he grudgingly gives you $250. And the cycle repeats. As word gets out, the fact that 'Carbuncle' is lousy becomes common knowledge, and pretty soon no nursery is growing it. 'Brilliant' seems to be okay, but eventually 'Agatha' is proven superior, and within a few years its really the only one of your varieties being grown.<br /><br />Bottom line: <br />3 varieties released<br />1 variety proved useful<br />$1,000 made by breeder<br /><br />Now say you're the same breeder, with the same selections, but you live in an alternate reality where there IS a plant patent law. You look over your three selections, decide A is clearly superior, name it 'Agatha', and march down to the patent office, prepare vast acres of paperwork, and get yourself a plant patent on it. Then you go to the nurseryman, offer him not just access to 'Agatha', but exclusive rights to propagate and sell it. This is worth a lot more to him than just a brief headstart, so he pays you, say, $10,000. You have enough money, that you even roll it into expanding your breeding program. You don't bother releasing B and C, because they don't have anything A didn't, and it's not worth the cost of patenting them.<br /><br />Bottom line:<br />1 variety released<br />1 variety proved useful<br />$9,000 made by breeder<br /><br />Alternately, if you felt like getting more involved, you could have sold various licenses to a bunch of nurseries, licensed propagation rights to them on a yearly basis, or charged them a per plant royalty (both of these are attractive in that they give you a continuous revenue stream to live off of).<br /><br />Patenting will virtually always lower the number of varieties released, because there is no longer an incentive to try to sell as many varieties as possible as the next hot thing. Not only does the breeder win on this deal, but so does the public, who has fewer crap varieties to wade through. (The nurserymen might arguably have come out the worst of it, but there are probably efficiencies for them, as they don't need to maintain huge numbers of varieties or keep up with constant changes). The fact that good varieties have value more in keeping with their usefulness means there's an incentive to spend money and time to pursue innovative breeding procedures to produce truly outstanding varieties. Without patents, the best tactic is to throw as many things against the wall as you can and hope that a few stick. With patents, the best tactic is to release a good variety, so that its value has longevity, either to prompt a large upfront payment or years of royalties.<br /><br /><b>"Luther Burbank did very well without protection"</b><br /><br />The above quote is from Fiorello LaGuardia, in the congressional debate over the plant patent act. It is also not especially true. While Burbank achieved widespread renown, which no doubt helped him sell varieties at a higher price than otherwise, he was never wildly rich. Considering that the man released dozens of varieties still grown a hundred years later (and many hundred others, see above), saying that he did "very well" when he seems to have managed at best a middle class life style, partially supported by public grants, seems a bit of a stretch. Also, his operation was always small, topping out at 22 acres, with a very small staff (sometimes just himself). Imagine what a man like that might have created had he been able to make enough money to pour back into his efforts and expand? We might still be benefiting from it.<br /><br /><b>Most early plant patents were roses</b><br /><br />Even if you agree with the conclusion that fewer varieties is equal to less innovation, the study refers only to roses. They are extrapolating from this because of the sheer number of rose patents. However, the purpose of the plant patent law was not primarily to promote innovation in roses. In actuality, it was World War I food shortages and demands from farm states that triggered the pressures that resulted in the plant patent law, although some nurseries who produced ornamentals were certainly among the later proponents (these tended to be the large nurseries with connections to major breeders). The real motivation behind the law was to prompt innovation in food crops.<br /><br /><b>Most patents belonged to large breeding/nursery operations</b><br /><br />Again, we come back to the question of what is actually produced that is of value. Because patents provide an incentive to produce better varieties rather than merely more varieties, the advantage goes to programs that can afford to take financial risks to produce truly superior varieties, by developing programs with real depth, rather than simply name seedlings. Yes, it raises the barriers to entry for small operations, but the reason why those barriers are higher is because the standard for varieties is higher. Isn't that what we want?<br /><br /><b>The decline in imported varieties after the enactment of the Plant Patent Act can be attributed to other causes</b><br /><br />While that may be true, all that the authors establish is that any real effect cannot be measured in terms of the number of imported varieties because there are way too many confounding factors: they cite the Great Depression and World War II. To that I would add the great upswing in public plant breeding which came from the influx of returned soldiers, and federal dollars, to the Land Grant Universities. These produced public plant varieties which decreased the need for both imported varieties and domestic private breeding. <br /><br />But this brings me to another point: Though most of the world did not have a plant patent law, the lack of plant IP protection in a world where other nations have it means that foreign breeders don't want their varieties to enter your country. This hurts both the breeder and the country without the protections. China is a pretty good current example. Although the government has recognized the disadvantage this presents for Chinese growers and have taken steps to enforce the laws that exist, for years no sane breeder has knowingly let his varieties into China, where they would rapidly and illegally be reproduced without significant recourse on his part.<br /><br /><b>Most new roses in the 1930's and 40's were bred from European roses</b><br /><br />Um, so? Unless you could show that that continued to be true after the breeding programs that plant patents built had been long established, that's a meaningless fact. It gives the impression (as does the whole thing, really) that the authors really don't know much about plant breeding.<br /><br /><b>Less than one fifth of new varieties are patented</b><br /><br />This is another point where I come back to the fact that roses are a really bad example to use here. A rose breeding program does not require the collection of highly accurate data. While there are certainly traits which can be better bred with real data, the critical property of roses can be assessed from a very small number of plants. Plus roses are attractive and nice to have around. This encourages a large number of hobby breeders. You don't see a lot of, say, hobby wheat breeders. A better measure might be the number of <i>useful</i> varieties patented...but useful becomes harder to quantify with an ornamental.<br /><br /><b>Old data</b><br /><br />All the claims made in this paper are made on data 1970 and earlier. Much of it much earlier. Quotes like "Patented roses have no lived up to expectations," date to the early 1940's, when the patently would only have had at best a slight effect on breeding programs. Breeding programs are decades-long endeavors, and the impacts of the plant patent law are felt on a long term basis. Why would they basically discount half of the time since the law was passed? Some of the comments make me wonder if they are actually writing in the past... I find it <i>very</i> hard to believe that there has been no increase in private sector research expenditures on seed-propagated crop breeding since the passage of the PVP act in 1970. The Alston and Venner paper they cite acknowledges that the proportion of wheat acreage (once again, making sweeping conclusions based on a single crop) sown to privately bred varieties increased from 3% to 30% in the 20 years after the act passed, but that yield did not increase appreciably, and so they claim that PVP was used primarily as a marketing tool. I don't quite understand that claim, because a check with FAOSTAT shows an increase of almost 50% since the passage of the act. I know that's a simplistic measure, but the method they use to computer yield, on a state by state basis, seems to me to have certain issues as well...<br /><br />The FAOSTAT info doesn't show big increases until the mid-80's, but like I said...breeding takes time. One wouldn't expect to see immediate effects of the law. Alston and Venner acknowledge this by saying that development time is 5-12 years, but this is only generation...the real impacts of re-investment in programs would come in compounding over generations. <br /><br />But anyway, I'm off on another paper now...<br /><br />I am a private breeder. My value to my employer comes in producing patented varieties. So obviously I have a vested interest here. My job would not exist without a plant patent law. Nor would the jobs of a vast majority of U.S. breeders. All that said, I am a huge proponent of public breeding programs. We need more of them. They need more money. They both build up the foundations on which private programs are built, and they keep up competition on private programs by preventing the development of virtual monopolies. However I think current developments towards the patenting and restricting of public program germplasm has severely damaged that system, and turn it into something frighteningly like the private programs, and losing focus on the scientific advancement and germplasm development that is a critical role for those programs. I don't blame the breeders in charge of those programs—breeding programs are expensive, and that money has to come from somewhere. I blame the institutions and governments that have starved those programs of funds.(But that's another rant...)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com249tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-68635300572662686732010-03-10T22:22:00.000-05:002010-03-10T22:22:00.717-05:00Pomegranate breeding and germplasmJust stumbled up on a review of pomegranate genetic resources:<br /><br /><a href="http://ressources.ciheam.org/om/pdf/a42/00600252.pdf">Pomegranate Plant Material: Genetic Resources and Breeding, a Review</a> (CIHEAM)<br /><br />I'm feeling a little grouchy tonight because a nursery lost my tree order (including pomegranates) and now the ones I want aren't available from where I wanted them until next year.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com278tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-68796635851131827542010-03-09T14:41:00.003-05:002010-03-09T14:48:51.253-05:00This is pretty cool...A guide to plant breeding programs in 36 different countries, many of which I've never heard of. Who'd have guessed there was so much breeding in Algeria, for example? These are nearly all developing countries, and I think it's encouraging to see these governments devoting scarce resources to these efforts. <br /><br /><a href="http://km.fao.org/gipb/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=43&Itemid=389">National Organizations and Programs</a><br>(Plant Breeding Knowledge Resource Center)<br /><br /><i>Update</i>: To be clear, I've heard of the <i>countries</i>, but not the breeding programs.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com165tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-53697369452984250682010-03-07T21:10:00.003-05:002010-03-07T21:10:00.358-05:00Attack of the Mutant CherriesOkay, they're not really attacking. But they are mutant cherries.<br /><br />I've been neglecting my friends over at the <a href="http://agro.biodiver.se">Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog</a>, but popping over there to catch up quickly turned up a <a href="http://agro.biodiver.se/2010/02/irradiating-cherry-trees-in-order-to-save-them/">fruit link</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/7254354/Japanese-scientists-create-cherry-tree-that-blossoms-all-year-round.html">Japanese Scientists Create Cherry Tree That Blossoms All Year Round</a> (Telegraph)<br /><br />These sort of "everbearing" mutations have proven useful in a variety of of other crops, including strawberries (which are near and dear to me), but this may be the only one I know of that was artificially induced, rather than naturally occurring. (That said I'm skeptical about the prospects for this variety--the natural cycle of a plant is a critical component of its adaptation, and throwing one element of it completely out of whack like this can have serious detrimental effects. That can be okay in something like strawberry, where you're going to replant it yearly, but on a tree, the results can be a problem.)<br /><br />Mutation breeding has a long history, though, and in fact one of the more important examples in fruit was also in cherry: the <a href="http://thefruitblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/fruit-genetics-friday-3-self.html">development of self-fertile varieties</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com330tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-41313942687848033462010-03-07T14:24:00.004-05:002010-03-07T14:39:50.699-05:00What this strawberry needs is a name that says "dry and sandy"...The University of California strawberry breeding program (the southern branch, based in Irvine) has released <a href="http://www.thegrower.com/Home/IndustryNewsLanding/tabid/73/Default.aspx?tid=2&cid=837686">two new strawberry varieties</a>, Benicia (formerly C225) and Mojave (formerly C227).<br /><br />The southern California strawberry industry is kind of hurting these days, with increasing yields and increasing acreages (as well as competition from Mexico and elsewhere) pushing down prices and cutting into profit, so I'm sure these will be welcomed, though the last release from this program, 'Palomar', has not really caught on. <br /><br />I've tried these varieties, when they were in limited trials, and I have to say I don't see any of them really setting the world on fire, though. The flavor was definitely better than 'Ventana', which is the current standard, but didn't exactly knock my socks off, and the fact that they're actually talking about how soft 'Mojave' is seems like a bad, bad sign. I'll take anything that pushes the quality standards above 'Ventana', which is an insult to strawberries, but since yields appear to be no higher they're not likely to be much of a fix for what ails the industry.<br /><br />(And yeah, I've got a certain bias here, but I call 'em like I see 'em)<br /><br />There's much more info on these in <a href="http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/ucstrawberry/ppt_pdf/Adv_selections_C225-227_So_CA_Larson_09.pdf">this presentation</a>, but they're not named yet, so just look for the testing numbers (poor C226, so close to a shot at the big time).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com221tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-86130925856210670912010-03-07T14:15:00.003-05:002010-03-07T14:19:14.618-05:00Rearranging the furnitureIt just dawned on me that I had several fruit blogs in the "Fruit-ish Links" section, even though I had a perfectly good "Other Fruit Blogs!" section, so I moved 'em. Don's Cold Hardy Citrus Blog kind of doesn't look like it's a blog anymore, but I moved it and I'll sort that out later.<br /><br />The Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog is a blog, but not a fruit blog, so I'm keeping it where it is. Still probably doesn't make any sense, but oh well.<br /><br />I briefly considered alphabetizing, but I don't have that kind of ambition. Please don't read anything into the point at which your site appears in the list--it's wherever was most convenient to insert it at a given moment, not a ranking or a measure of my love.<br /><br />And yeah, I know this doesn't really require a post and that no one cares about the links and their arrangement. But by posting this I'm maintaining the illusion of frenetic burst of activity on this site!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com227tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-51136018676973832282010-03-07T14:02:00.002-05:002010-03-07T14:10:50.135-05:00Forest Gardens of PitayaThere are times I think that this would be a pretty good blog if all I did was parrot all the fruit posts from <a href="http://agro.biodiver.se">these guys</a>. And there are days when I think it <i>is</i> all I do. But it's still good stuff:<br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/the-forest-gardens-of-quintana-roo/">The Forest Gardens of Quintana Roo</a> (Nourishing the Planet) <br /><br />I've had some mighty good pitaya in Central Mexico, and I posted about the first time <a href="http://thefruitblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/you-say-pitahaya-i-say-pitaya.html">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com551tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-20103418631147720992010-03-06T22:58:00.002-05:002010-03-06T23:14:00.409-05:00Oh man! A new banana from Oman!Another find from the <a href="http://agro.biodiver.se/">Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog</a>...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.promusa.org/infomus-mainmenu-83/news-mainmenu-157/185-mystery-cultivar-from-oman">Mystery Cultivar from Oman</a> (ProMusa)<br /><br />I was kind of surprised that there are abandoned oases full of bananas in Oman. I would think there'd be a shortage of arable land in that part of the world. But what do I know?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com437tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-6664378483733892052010-03-06T20:59:00.002-05:002010-03-06T21:02:32.608-05:00Does Queens have Terroir?That's Queens, the New York borough. The climate might actually be okay--the other end of Long Island actually makes some decent wines.<br /><br /><a href+"http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703431604575095790695075992.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines">Queens's Napa Valley</a> (Wall Street Journal)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com141tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-67313845430222420892010-03-06T20:22:00.003-05:002010-03-06T20:38:52.270-05:00Trees of EndangeredstanCentral Asia is possibly the region of the world least on most people's radar (despite its proximity to that perennial focus, the Middle East), but it is a center of diversity for many, many fruit crops, and as such has genetic resources which could prove critical for future breeders of such things as apples, almonds, walnuts, peaches, pomegranates and many other crops. It also has environmental degradation, unstable governments, and widespread poverty, which threaten those resources, many of which have never made it out of the region thanks to nearly a century of Soviet rule and isolation.<br /><br />Flora & Fauna International has compiled a "Red List" of endangered fruit and nut species in the area. Critically endangered species include pears, hawthorns, currants, and barberries. Some of these things are down to a single tiny population.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.globaltrees.org/downloads/RedListCentralAsia.pdf">Red List of Trees of Central Asian</a><br /><br />An interesting read about a bunch of species I at least hadn't heard much (or anything) about.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com106tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-61575962062224793772010-03-06T00:36:00.002-05:002010-03-06T00:55:30.981-05:00A Life of ApplesSeems like I spend a lot of time talking about apples here, which is sort of odd, considering that I've actually never worked with them, and I talk much less about some of the crops I have worked with. But part of why apples keep coming up is that they seem to possess a special place in our culture and our history. <br /><br />During my months away from this site I stumbled across an apple blog, which I read for a bit, planned on posting here, and then promptly forgot about it as work and travel took me away from the Internet. Then today I realized that the "Chris" who commented here the other day is none other than the author of that blog<br /><br /><a href="http://appleharvester.blogspot.com/">A Life of Apples</a><br /><br /><b>A Life of Apples</b> features a number of profiles of cultivars, all interesting and well done, which is how I found it, but also touches on the historical and mythological aspects of apples, as well as yoga, recipes, and more. A definite addition to the sidebar.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com85tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-32124429219282824532010-03-03T18:25:00.003-05:002010-03-03T18:32:09.750-05:00Thanks...Aww...thanks guys. It's nice to feel missed. I can't make any promises, but as spring starts to sneak up I feel myself thinking more of the wonders of the fruit world beyond my own job...<br /><br />Oh, and Adam...just call me "Evil". I consider us colleagues.<br /><br />And Japanese Comment Spam Guy...thank you for standing by me through all the unproductive months. While other people remained silent as I posted nothing, you kept up a steady dialog with yourself and all those people who would click on a random link labeled "SEX" in the midst of a block of Japanese. Thank you for steadfast faith in my blog and the fact that I was far too lazy to delete you on a regular basis.<br /><br />(Blogger appears broken at the moment, so you get this as a post, not a comment).<br /><br />In the meantime, have another Canadian 'Red Prince' article.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/strategy/article.jsp?content=20100315_10023_10023">How do you like them apples?</a> (Canadian Business)<br /><br />More later, promise.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com69tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-78728254632333974842010-02-24T14:56:00.003-05:002010-02-24T14:59:18.759-05:00The Red Prince (or: Just in case you thought I'd died)Just came across this article on a new(ish) apple variety and thought it was kind of interesting...always happy to see these sort of things appearing in the mainstream press, even if it comes with the obligatory discussion of HoneyCrisp which I'm getting a tad tired of.<br /><br /><a href="http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/theappetizer/archive/2010/02/20/the-invention-of-an-apple-the-red-prince.aspx">The invention of an apple: The Red Prince</a> (National Post)<br /><br />Sorry to neglect things around here...maybe this will be the start of a resurgence?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com141tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-10813206780883064322009-09-13T16:25:00.002-04:002009-09-13T16:30:21.189-04:00The Almond DoctorI'm always pleased when I stumble across single-crop blogs. This morning's discovery is The Almond Doctor, by University of California Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor for Merced County, David Doll. Apparently there are 102,000 acres of almonds in Merced County, which is absolutely mindboggling! The focus seems to be primarily on pest and diseases, which gives it a very practical bent.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.thealmonddoctor.com/">The Almond Doctor</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com88tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-26835013452909097292009-08-23T23:36:00.001-04:002009-09-13T16:30:44.905-04:00Lanzones?I was just perusing <a href="http://scentofgreenbananas.blogspot.com">The Scent of Green Bananas</a>, and came across this:<br /><br /><a href="http://scentofgreenbananas.blogspot.com/2009/08/name-that-fruit-lanzones.html">Name That Fruit!: Lanzones</a> (Scent of Green Bananas)<br /><br />I have never heard of these things, but I'm intrigued. Anybody know if these are available in the U.S.? Meliaceae is the mahogany family...<br /><br />TSOGB is basically a food blog, but so fruit intensive that I read it semi-routinely, which is saying something because my tolerance for food blogs wears out pretty fast.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com73tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-77060658191282041702009-08-23T01:14:00.002-04:002009-08-23T01:18:20.849-04:00Another pluot link...Just a quickie here...wanted to link to a pluot post by my friends over at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog:<br /><br /><a href="http://agro.biodiver.se/2009/08/what-i-did-on-my-holidays-the-pluot/">What I did on my holidays: The Pluot</a> (Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com99tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-7093963646837059722009-08-22T23:49:00.007-04:002009-08-23T00:46:15.320-04:00Fruit in KoreaI never reported back on my trip to Korea, mostly, I guess, because I hadn't reported back on anything here in months until very recently. But rest assured that I did go, and I did come back, and I did eat fruit while I was there. <br /><br />Most of what I encountered was not overly exotic, although I did get to try the <i>bokbunja</i> that was recommended in the comments. This is a wine made from <i>Rubus coreanus</i> the Korean black raspberry. It was tasted about like what you'd expect from a black raspberry wine, but with a more substantial kick than I'd anticipated. (Of course, it was followed immediately by a couple of beers at a noraebang, so that might have had something to do with it). I thought it was pretty good. Apparently it also helps with impotence and sexual stamina, though neither was really an issue on this trip.<br /><br />We also had <i>hallabong</i>, a relatively expensive but very tasty citrus fruit grown primarily on Jeju Island. It's vaguely tangelo-like, released from a Japanese breeding program in the 1970's (they called it <i>Dekopon</i>, but the Korean ones are named for a mountain on Jeju). I've seen a couple variations, so I'm not 100% confident in the pedigree, but the most probable seems to be: <br /><br />Hallabong = Kiyomi x Ponkan<br />Kiyomi = Miyagawa x Trovita<br /><a href="http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/miyagawa.html">Miyagawa</a> = <i>Citrus unshiu</i><br /><a href="http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/trovita.html">Trovita</a> = <i>Citrus sinensis</i><br />Ponkan = <i>Citrus reticulata</i><br /><br /> (<i>Citrus unshiu</i> x <i>Citrus sinensis</i>) x <i>Citrus reticulata</i>. <br /><br />(For those unfamiliar with the Latin binomials, <i>sinensis</i> is the sweet orange, <i>reticulata</i> is mandarin/tangerine, and <i>unshiu</i> is the satsuma or mikan. <br /><br />Anyway, very good. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of it.<br /><br />I did however get pictures of jujube (from a street market in Suwon):<br /><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3328/3343466072_866c6e2472.jpg" height="300" width="400"><br /><br />And some asian pears, apples, and kumquats:<br /><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3651/3343467060_ab0251c310.jpg" height="300" width="400"><br />(I don't know what variety of apples they were, but it seemed to be the same variety everywhere. I had one and it was pretty uninspiring).<br /><br />And some strawberries (there's also a few oranges and melons hiding in there):<br /><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3400/3342634445_cea3f3a159.jpg" height="300" width="400"><br />(This seemed to be the only way strawberries were sold in Korea–in big styrofoam boxes. I think these were mostly 'Chandler', but I could be wrong (I'm pretty sure at least the ones I ate were). There were a couple of flats that might have been 'Camarosa' or something like that. They were even more shameless than US strawberry packers in hiding the bad fruit under the good, probably because in an opaque container it's easier to hide).<br /><br />Also, though not a fruit, I also sampled <i>bundagi</i>, silkworm larvae:<br /><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3327/3343468176_2942a55667.jpg" height="300" width="400"><br />(I sampled some of these later, cooked not fresh, and wasn't too impressed, though my cousin told me the ones we had were not especially good ones...)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com113tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-56955835413311630782009-08-22T20:42:00.003-04:002009-08-22T21:01:52.333-04:00Plumcots vs. PluotsChip Brantley, whose <a href="http://thefruitblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/perfect-fruit-good-breeding-bad-seeds.html">pluot book</a> I recently reviewed, has also recently penned an article on the distinction (or lack there of) between plumcots and pluots.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2225665/">The Whole Truth About Pluots Versus Plumcots</a> (Slate)<br /><br />As I have mentioned before, I myself definitely favor "plumcot". I'm bothered by the idea of something trademarked becoming a generic term for something for which there is no real non-trademarked term, which would be the case if one insisted that plumcots are solely 50-50 plum-apricot hybrids (well, I suppose there's always "interspecific plum", but come on...). It restricts discussion and trade by people who don't hold the trademark, and it dilutes the trademark, so pretty much no one wins.<br /><br />On a semi-related note, does anybody know the exact species make up of the "cherums" I've been seeing in the store? They've only come in big packages, so I haven't yet bought one, but they look pretty heavy on the plum side of things. I'd be stunned if some one could get any fertility of consequence in a cherry x plum hybrid without a bunch of backcrosses to one side or the other, but I'd be curious just which species they're working with. I'd wondered if maybe it was really a hybrid with the cherry-plum, <i>Prunus cerasifera</i>, but if you believe what little I've found online, it sounds like it involves actual cherries...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-55190497942960312652009-08-22T03:13:00.007-04:002009-08-22T21:03:11.562-04:00Mysticism and miniature fruitI visited the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum the other day (which, although I had originally worried it would be a weird cultish experience, was a really cool, professional museum, easily worth visiting for those with an interest in ancient Egypt) and came across this row of dwarf pomegranates along one wall. I didn't even recognize them until I saw the fruit, which was pretty obviously pomegranate-like. It gave the cultivar name as 'Nana', but I'm now thinking that's actually a botanical variety, and so there's got to be a cultivar name that goes with it (assuming they weren't just seedlings).<br /><br />Anyway, I was delighted to find an unusual fruit growing there, and snapped a few pictures:<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fruitblog/3844948420/" title="Dwarf pomegranates at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum by Evil Fruit Lord, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3596/3844948420_8409590726.jpg" width="425" height="325" alt="Dwarf pomegranates at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum" /></a><br /><br><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fruitblog/3844149529/" title="'Nana' Dwarf Pomegranate by Evil Fruit Lord, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2565/3844149529_19719c9c12.jpg" width="425" height="325" alt="'Nana' Dwarf Pomegranate" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-48439118963291093812009-08-22T02:15:00.003-04:002009-08-22T21:04:05.216-04:00Fruit photos...I hadn't logged into my Flickr account in ages, but when I did tonight, I discovered I had been contacted by a user called "frutticetum". I don't know anything about Mr. (or Ms.) frutticetum, but I really like their collection of photos, which includes a number of pretty unusual fruits—Quinces, medlars, aronia, elderberries, many more:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/frutticetum/">frutticetum's Photostream</a> (Flickr)<br /><br />While I'm at it, I might as well link to one more. Spidra Webster is an occasional commenter (and I'm hoping still a reader) around here, and she's got quite a collection of fruit images on Flickr as well:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/spidra/tags/fruit/">Spidra Webster's stuff tagged with "fruit"</a> (Flickr)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-59884125205524732272009-08-22T01:44:00.003-04:002009-08-22T01:56:40.805-04:00Food ForwardSarah Spitz, from <a href="http://www.kcrw.com/">KCRW</a>, sent along a link to <a href="http://foodforward.wordpress.com/">Food Forward</a>, an organization which harvests fruit trees in back yards and other locations and donates it to local food pantries. This is a great idea...many people (hopefully myself included, now that I finally own a decent chunk of land) tend to have way more fruit on their trees than they or their family will ever eat. Really, if you have more than a few good sized trees and don't have a huge family or a love of canning or fermenting, a lot of fruit is going to go to waste unless you give it away. A nice cause, and a good way to share all the unusual cultivars you've collected with the world. (From the looks of it this is a Southern California organization, but I'm not 100% sure. It's still a nice idea to donate your extra fruit to a food pantry, even if there's no Fruit Forward in your area...)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com67tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-19526926605871801452009-08-22T00:49:00.005-04:002009-08-22T01:35:34.794-04:00Smoothie QuestAs much as I like to occasionally gripe about the selection of fruit in grocery stores, I have to say the number of interesting fruits in them has certainly improved in the last decade. My three year-old and I decided at dinner we were going to make smoothies tonight. We already had blueberries at home, and I had half a flat of strawberries from work in the car (I was planning an informal tasting of the five leading selections, which was cut short when one of my daughters wolfed down one clamshell's worth in a matter of seconds). So we headed to the store and went fruit shopping.<br /><br />She made her old dad proud, choosing a really eclectic mix of fruits, each of which I sampled before dropping them into the mix:<br /><br />Cherimoya:<br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fruitblog/3844718746/" title="Cherimoya by Evil Fruit Lord, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2543/3844718746_6231ab6102_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Cherimoya" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fruitblog/3844717744/" title="Cherimoya by Evil Fruit Lord, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2610/3844717744_058982f941_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Cherimoya" /></a></center><br /><br />Wow...I'd forgotten how much I liked cherimoya. The aroma is wonderful. And it worked really well in a smoothie. The only downside was digging out all those seeds (which are hopefully working on germinating right now...)<br /><br />Honeydew Nectarine:<br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fruitblog/3843924209/" title="Honeydew nectarine by Evil Fruit Lord, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2659/3843924209_9683963dd6_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Honeydew nectarine" /></a></center><br /><br />I had never heard of this before...and I really wasn't missing much. It tasted like a blend of really bland nectarine and underripe melon. It might not have been fully ripe, but the texture suggests it was close. Still, a pale yellow nectarine is interesting. (My picture is kind of washed out...oh well.<br /><br />Golden Kiwi:<br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fruitblog/3844722544/" title="Gold Kiwi by Evil Fruit Lord, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2504/3844722544_e080544d65_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Gold Kiwi" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fruitblog/3843931135/" title="Gold Kiwi by Evil Fruit Lord, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3529/3843931135_b1b8c36915_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Gold Kiwi" /></a></center><br /><br />I've been seeing these for a while, but this is actually the first time I've bought one. Interesting that the shape and skin are so distinctive--if I had to guess, this is <i>Actinidia chinensis</i>, not the usual <i>Actinidia deliciosa</i>. It was pretty good, but nothing spectacular. It was a tad past its peak, I think, but it went into the mix just fine.<br /><br />Manzano Bananas:<br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fruitblog/3844719710/" title="Manzano Bananas by Evil Fruit Lord, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2453/3844719710_b9460a3c45_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Manzano Bananas" /></a></center><br /><br />I really like these things. I probably should have waited for them to darken more (it does improve the flavor), but they're really good even at this stage. I ate one while I worked and gave the other to my daughter, so none made it in the smoothie (we bought some standard bananas too, which served just fine).<br /><br />We also got blackberries (which my daughter had nearly reduced to smoothies already by the time we got them back to the car--she was enjoying shaking the bag vigorously), a nectarine, more standard versions of kiwi and banana, and an apple.<br /><br />The smoothies were good and we got to discuss lots of different fruit species. How many three year olds do you know who can tell you all about cherimoyas?<br /><br />(I didn't really have a point to this post, other than just basking in all the fruit I just bought).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11168635.post-49816449402042947212009-08-16T01:12:00.001-04:002009-08-15T15:09:40.240-04:00The Perfect Fruit: Good Breeding, Bad Seeds, and the Hunt for the Elusive Pluot, by Chip Brantley<table align="right" border="0" width="180"><tbody><tr><td><blockquote><i><font size="2">The Perfect Fruit:<br>Good Breeding, Bad Seeds, and the Hunt for the Elusive Pluot<br /></font></i><font size="3"><img src="http://www.chipbrantley.com/storage/perfect-fruit.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1247516890730" height="227" width="150" /><b><center>Chip Brantley</center></b><br /></font><font size="1">240 pages<br />Bloomsbury USA, 2009<br />List $25</font></blockquote><br /></td><br /></tr></tbody></table><br />What seems like an eternity ago, when I was still posting semi-regularly here, Chip Brantley contacted me about doing a series of fruit breeder profiles for his website, <a href="http://www.cookthink.com">CookThink</a>. Then a few personal crises intervened on my side, things got postponed, work picked up, and it never happened. But in the course of our conversation he mentioned that he was writing a book on pluots. I thought this was a pretty cool idea--there aren't many decent books on stone fruit, and certainly not on pluots specifically, and I said I'd like to read it when it was done.<br /><br />That was probably a year ago. I'd honestly kind of forgotten about it. When you talk to serious fruit enthusiasts, you'll find that an awful lot of them are writing books about fruit. I think it comes from reading too many books about fruit. (For the record, in keeping with my obligation is a fruit fanatic, I'm writing a book, on grape breeders, or at least I was until my hard drive crash ate about half of it. I have to say my enthusiasm has waned a bit since). But anyway, I didn't necessarily expect that I would ever see the pluot book.<br /><br />But I have to give Chip credit: not only did he write the pluot book, but he remembered my interest in it, and a couple weeks ago a copy appeared in my mail box. <br /><br />I haven't been so pleased with a fruit book in a long time. It's not because it's the perfect book on pluots. I'd have written a very different book on pluots: more species info, more chromosomes, more history, more Luther Burbank. My book would have been twice as long, and it would have had lots of photos and tables, and probably nobody but me and a handful of stone fruit breeders would have been able to stomach reading it from cover to cover.<br /><br />Brantley didn't write that, book, and I'm glad he didn't. Because this book does something else that no other book I've read has really done, at least not as well, and that is to capture what it's like on the inside of the fruit industry. The pluot is important to this story mostly because it's the central theme, but it in a very real sense, it's not what the book's about. The book is about the people and the business that have grown up around stone fruits--the breeders, the growers, the shippers, even the grocery stores. But one could have written the same story about strawberries, or apples, or citrus.<br /><br />When people ask me what I do for a living, the next question (if there is a next question--I get a lot of blank stares of incomprehension) is what it is I do all day. And I dutifully try to explain, which inevitably entails a long complicated explanation of what it is the company does and how I fit in there and then I notice they're either losing interest or have wound up with one of those blank stares after all. This book is that explanation, only readable and interesting. For the people I really want to understand the business I work in, I <i>will</i> be recommending this book.<br /><br />But even if you don't have a fruit breeder in the family that you're seeking to understand, I think this is still an important book, because so few people really understand the machinery that stands behind the produce they buy at the store. There's a lot of ignorance and a lot of misconceptions about agriculture and about farmers (there's virtually no misconceptions about fruit breeders, because hardly anybody knows we exist, though we do occasionally get accused of genetic engineering).There is a lot more complexity to the stone fruit industry than probably occurred to most folks, which is probably really the case with most industries. And as we follow both the development of the pluot and the players on the stone fruit stage, of the shifting loyalties and million dollar gambles, we start to get a picture of the constant balancing act these growers need to perform. <br /><br />I've had so many conversations with people in which the grower is cast as some evil profiteer who cares nothing about quality, gleefully foisting crappy tasting fruit onto the hapless customers and cashing his fat checks. Many people don't seem to realize that the vast majority of growers want to grow good fruit. They want a product they can be proud of, that they can feel good putting their family name on. Unfortunately, many are working within the bounds of a system that doesn't put much value on quality, where price is dictated by volume and convenience. It's also a system in which margins are often slim, and the grower who chooses to emphasize quality but doesn't find a way to get paid for it sometimes can't pay his bills at the end of the season. (And sometimes it doesn't matter what they do--some seasons no one makes money). <br /><br />Stone fruit have suffered a great deal in the current system, though perhaps not uniquely so. I didn't think I liked fresh peaches until I was 28 and in grad school in Arkansas, and I actually tasted tree-ripe peaches. A good peach is just about as good as fruit can get. Same goes for plums. I haven't had a plum I truly liked from a grocery store yet, nor even from a farmer's market, but I've had plenty of good ones out of people's back yards. Mass producing food is inevitably a compromise, but the stone fruit seem to have been more compromised than most.<br /><br />The book ends on a hopeful note, that maybe this system is starting to change, and the pluot is held up as an example of how things are shifting. And I hope he's right. Certainly store-bought pluots have raised the bar for stone fruit. But I'm still continually disheartened by how many people just don't notice. People who will happily munch on the nine-month-old 'Delicious' apple and not notice the distinct resemblance to damp cardboard, or buy boxes full of half-green strawberries. I think somehow some of these people just like the concept of eating fruit in some way completely detached from the actual experience of doing it. These are the people who have set the tone for a long time. We have crappy produce in our stores solely because people like this will happily pay a reasonable price for them. If the only fruit people paid money for was good fruit, then there would only be good fruit in the stores, and growers would be paid to produce good fruit. That's how capitalism works. <br /><br />As I have said, it's not as technically or historically focused as many single fruit books are, which was initially a bit of a disappointment to me. (It's worth noting that the Washington Post's review, while positive, thinks he gets too caught up in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080701405.html">"long tedious fruit genealogies"</a>, so much of this is probably in the eye of the beholder). There's not a ton of science, beyond a basic explanation of how breeding is done and a brief overview of Prunus. Nor does Luther Burbank, father of the plumcot and probably the greatest plant breeder ever, get his fair share, in my view. Instead the star of this story is Floyd Zaiger, probably the closest thing to Burbank alive today, who took Burbank's idea and turned it into commercially viable varieties. I've wanted to write a piece about Zaiger Genetics for ages, but for now you'll just have to settle for this article or the Dave Wilson's Nursery <a href="http://www.davewilson.com/z_file/zaiger_varieties.html">catalog of Zaiger varieties</a>, always an entertaining read in itself. <br /><br />Brantley's writing is engaging, occasionally humorous, and infused with passion for his subject. His excitement about pluots has that slightly unfathomable quality that I find all good fruit authors have. In the narrative of his pluot research, I can see shadows of my own journeys of discovery into various fruit. Not everyone will get that, I suspect. But I also suspect most people, even those with no particular interest in pluots, will be taken by the string of characters Brantley visits in the course of his quest. The book is a quick, easy, and rewarding read, and I heartily recommend it to any one who eats fruit (which I would assume is essentially any one reading this blog).<br /><br />You can buy it from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPerfect-Fruit-Breeding-Seeds-Elusive%2Fdp%2F1596913819%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1250331675%26sr%3D8-1&tag=thfrbl-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Amazon</a> and <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Perfect-Fruit/Chip-Brantley/e/9781596913813/?itm=1">Barnes and Noble</a>, among other places.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com105