National Geographic's short article "Our Dwindling Food Variety":

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/food-ark/food-variety-graphic#.Tlwb23Ps0kV.facebook

This doesn't strike me as such a good thing, because

1. I like many tasty varieties of veggies on my dinner table;

2. and fewer varieties seem to mean greater vulnerability to disease, pest, crop failure, etc. The potato quickly became the staple in some European countries, but because so few varieties were brought over the Atlantic from the New World, the farmed potato could get wiped out by a single strain of virus, etc. The Irish Famine was apparently such an example. I'm not a biologist. Am I being paranoid?

DB

First what in the heck is muskmelon.

Second, Isnt this just Survival of the fittest and selective "breeding"?

Go down to your local market and see if they've got muskmelon. It's tasty.

Yes, this is selective breeding, but perhaps not survival of the fittest since there is a big human element involved. We select veggies that grow easily, grow well, and sell well, and we don't cultivate veggies that make less financial sense. But that means if there is virus, bacteria, pest for those particular types, we risk losing a lot of our food resources at the same time.

DB

Muskmelon = cantaloupe (article must have been written by a Yankee )

As for the second comment, the plant characteristics that are being emphasized by breeding are NOT the ones that insure the plant's survival, only it's ease in shipping.

-Blast

But do you really need that many? 36 varieties of lettuce... I think I only tried 4.


I actually think pest/disease resistance is a pretty important component of selection.

I just looked this up, and you're right. At my local market (am located in the Midwest), muskmelon and cantaloupe are categorized as two different things. I think of this as muskmelon:



and this as cantaloupe:



Guess they're the same species, but different varieties. Anyway, as a punishment for my ignorance, I hereby sentence myself to go find at least one of each and eat them in one setting.

DB

Mom used to grow "muskmelons" in our garden in Minnesota but the store I worked at labeled them cantaloupes.

-Blast

p.s. they both taste great!

Not really. Take for example the common potato, today I doubt you can get more than 6 varieties at your supermarket at any one time.

In the UK there are around 30 common varieties, with dozens of specialist varieties, which need to be searched out if you want a change of texture and taste.

http://www.lovepotatoes.co.uk/the-potato/

The problem here is the consumer education, as many folks in reality don't even know where a potato comes from let alone what variety of potato is suited to what recipe or meal. Some can't even tell the difference between a turnip, a beetroot and a potato and I have even heard of some folks eating rhubarb leaves, but I suspect this is a urban myth.

If you analyse the amount of space given over to high profit industrially produced value added products (microwave meals, vast isles of sugary (HFCS) bottled liquids and potato chips etc) in supermarkets at the expense of consumer choice of fruits and vegatable varieties, it all becomes clear that the main problem is actually the consumer. Salad doesn't come in a nitrogen filled clear plastic baggy. In the past sometimes you used get a free slug or snail. Today this would be completely unacceptable.

And ship well. Ie, iceberg lettuce can fit more heads in a box than, say, romaine.

Those 'cantaloupes', melons with the orange flesh and the 'netting' or raised webbing on the outside are technically muskmelons, but in this country the two names are used interchangeably (incorrectly). Cucumis melo reticulatus are the common ones you see in your American grocery store.

True cantaloupes are Cucumis melo cantalupensis, and aren't netted, have deep vertical grooves, a hard warty rind, and orange or green flesh. Some food authorities say they're only grown in Europe, where they know the difference.

A third kind that we see here are the Cucumis melo var inodoras, including the casaba, crenshaw and honeydew melons.

Sue

PARANOID???

NO, there's a difference between genuine fear and paranoia.

What are the two most basic things in the world? Water and food. Petroleum products and big-screen TVs pale by comparison.

The U.S. and Australia claim ownership of water, and there may be others. As it gets harder to find clean water, the stakes will be going up, but the wars haven't started yet.

But some folks have been systematically taking over the world's food supply. As Henry Kissinger declared in the 1970s, ‘If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.’

The top five seed owners at this point in time are named Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow & DuPont. In the last 15 yrs or so, these five have bought up over 200 seed companies. They keep the seeds that serve their purposes and discard the others. They cross-breed (hybridize) them and patent the results, or they modify them genetically and patent the results. The patent-holders are the owners. OWNERS. You only grow their plants with their permission, and you pay the price they ask.

But there are still people who are continuing to carefully grow some of the old varieties of seed, and share them with others of like minds. Some seed companies buy from these people, only offering the older, OP (open pollinated) types. They not only have wonderful flavors, but they have incredible importance due to their wide genetic diversity. Every single seed is slightly different, with genetic variations, even all the seeds from a single fruit.

From Biology Online: "The importance of genetic diversity is evident in terms of survival and adaptability of a species. For instance, a species with high genetic diversity will tend to produce a wider variety of offspring, where some of them may become the most fit variants.

"In contrast, a species that has little or no genetic diversity will produce offspring that are genetically alike and therefore will likely be susceptible to diseases or problems similar to those of their parent.

"Hence, little or lack of genetic diversity reduces biological fitness and increases the chances of species extinction."

But it is getting more and more difficult to maintain the genetic purity of these older varieties due to the contamination by commercial growers who are growing genetically-modified crops. Some plant families are closely related, and the contamination can affect many/most/all of them. Contamination can be via insects or wind, and the winds travel the world.

Genetically-modified (GM) crops have very little genetic diversity because they are virtually identical to each other, and that extreme similarity makes them incredibly susceptible to diseases.

Let me use corn for a (currently) fictitious example of disaster. Corn is this country's #1 crop by far, 331 million metric tons last year. We export half of it.

This year, 88% of the U.S. corn crop was GM. ( USDA Economic Research Service ) Now imagine a corn disease that crops up in WA State and spreads on the wind clear across America in the next two years, decimating the country's field (feed type) corn crop. Then it sweeps around the world in the next two years. And suppose it was discovered that the genetic diversity of many of the older corn varieties, saved in five-pound bags by individual small-time growers, had protected them from this disease.

How long do you think it would take (in years) to grow enough of the disease-resistant varieties to produce even one-quarter of what would be needed for seed to produce a crop the following year?

How would losing the export of half of our regular crop affect our economy? Most of the feed corn goes to huge feedlot cattle and hog operations, so it would impact those businesses incredibly, and increase the price of beef and pork. Chicken feed is mostly corn and wheat, so there goes the price of chicken and eggs. The corn ethanol business would crash, and so would the corn syrup businesses. Nearly all the processed foods in the U.S. contain high-fructose corn syrup or regular corn syrup, so all the companies that use it would have to change all their recipes. Tortillas and other masa harina products are food staples south of our border -- looks like only the rich might be able to afford it, so do the others starve? Many other products contain corn components, so what happens to them? How will it affect jobs?

Now, try that line of thinking on soy (mostly stock feed), alfalfa, sugar beets, rapeseed (source of canola oil), rice and cotton.

It's starting to look ugly, isn't it? I guess Kissinger was right.

Sue