ecobites.com

Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Last century there were over 2000 different varieties of apple trees. How many different kinds can you name now?

Can you buy a Lady-in-the-snow or a Democrat?

How many varieties do nurseries stock?

Your grandmother would be amazed at the lack of choice, even if you hadn't noticed.

We should extend our concern for the environment to include an effort to preserve as many of the old varieties as can be saved. Apples are not the only things affected.

The generations of selection that went into producing our present trees and plants, fruits and seeds - in some cases beginning in the first century AD - can be lost in a decade. Genetic diversity is shrinking at an alarming rate.

The cause is not difficult to trace. Economics is the reason. Reparcelling the land to make larger properties suits our mechanised methods. Market standards result in thousands of boxes of golden delicious, all the same size, colour, weight - how boring!

Small orchards, hedges of trees, and back yard specialities tended by enthusiastic amateurs may have protected some of our heritage by accident, but it is very vulnerable, and time is running out.

In 1981 a member of the Association of Apple Crunchers (Croquers de Pommes) rediscovered an apple thought to be extinct. The Api Etoile, the star Lady Apple, described as a ribbed, perfectly pentagonal apple. A solitary tree was found in Switzerland and ten grafts were made onto stocks which form part of a French collection of traditinal varieties. There are three botanical museums in France, an asociation which aims to preserve existing plant species, and a catalogue of all flora traditionally grown in France. Plant archaeologists preserve the country's heritage and rescue threatened varieties.

There is another aspect of plant archaeology. Although the earliest farmers chose annual grasses to develop into seed-producing crops, we could go back to the beginning again and start with perennials. They are still there in the wild. A different range of crops could be developed to supplement or replace our present soil-damaging monocultures in those areas where the yearly disturbance of the soil is adding to the dust-bowl effect.

Eastern gama grass is an example. As yet, the production from this perennial is measured in kilograms per hectare rather than tonnes, but it does have advantages.
Once established, perennials are more likely to survive in drought, and the leaves, stems and roots are there in all seasons to protect the soil as well as feeding men and animals.

It is more important now than ever before to rescue the past in order to preserve the future.

It is the future that is at stake.