Largest repository of fruits and berries to be destroyed!!

13 years ago

I've posted this message to both the Organic Gardening and Heirloom Plants forums because I think it a story that is very important to both groups. The original message was posted by FRANKTANK232 in the the "Fruit & Orchards" forum, under this same subject, "World's biggest collection of berries to be bulldozed".

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fruit/msg0612375115041.html?4

"The world's largest scientific repository of fruits and berries, outside St Petersburg, Russia, could be bulldozed later this year to make way for new homes."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627663.500-vital-fruit-and-berry-collection-set-for-destruction.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/worlds-biggest-collection-of-berries-and-fruits-faces-axe-2011015.html

I followed the links to read more about this story. It upset me so badly that I have been trying to think of any way that people could have some influence that might prevent the destruction of these plants. I wrote an email to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack asking that our government try to exert some influence to preserve these plants.

When I was a kid my grandmother told me stories about when the Chestnut Blight killed all the American Chestnut trees in the eastern US. One fungal disease managed to decimate one of the most important trees in the forests of the eastern US. In a matter of a few years, a tree, which was as common in forests as oak trees are today, were all completely dead. Because the wood was naturally disease and rot resistant, the dead tree stood for years until people gradually cut them down for timber. They stood like skeletons to remind them of what had been lost. The trees had provided a tremendous source of nutrition for humans, livestock, and wildlife as well as one of the best lumber materials available for homes, barns, and fences.

I live in Knoxville, TN at the foot of the Great Smokey Mountains. For the past 20 years, the hemlock woolly adelgid had been repeating this same story as it kills all the hemlock trees in the Great Smokey Mountains. Scientists are predicting that all hemlocks in the southern U.S will be dead within 10 years. We never know when a new pest or disease will come along and wipe out a species or variety of plant upon which we depend. It is imperative that organizations with collections of plants, like the ones at the Pavlovsk experimental station, be preserved so that we have genetic diversity upon which we can develop new variates that will be resistant to plant diseases of the future.

I am going to start putting together a list of URLs and email address for sending comments to press, government, and other groups to see if anything can be done to convince the Russian government that they need to build elsewhere. If I put this list together of URLs and email addresses, how many people would volunteer to send notes to them all. You could write a one simple note to them all, but it is not as simple as sending a group email with blind carbon copies. More and more often groups are using web pages where you must post your comments to them, rather than having a public email address. For these you have to click, paste, and send to each one.

Besides agreeing to send to the list I can put together, everyone that is interested could send the list to friends that are fellow gardeners for example. If a few dozen influential people get a few thousand emails, something might happen to prevent this catastrophe.

The alternative to preserving this plant genetic diversity is that soon we will all be held hostage by a few large corporations who will hold the patents on every plant that is grown for food or fiber. To grow and prosper these plants will depend upon patented chemicals sold by the same companies.

Greg

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