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  • From: "Alliums" <garlicgrower AT green-logic.com>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Garlic Renaming
  • Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:23:45 -0500


Hi, Folks!

Mark wrote:

<<i was surprized to see on the list that Johnnies is renaming garlic ..
this is totally unethical and may be illegal according to USDA regulations>>

It's not illegal to name or re-name garlic -- there are very few USDA
standards for garlic (not even grading standards!) since it is considered a
minor crop.

<< I was wondering if the garlic seed foundation contacted Johnnies before
they printed that.>>

I'm sure David Stern had words with Johnnies beforehand -- everything I
wrote is what David Stern said at the meeting. He also mentioned that the
"Pink Music" being sold by Seeds of Change is actually the same Porcelain
Music that we're all growing here in the Northeast -- it's just pink in NM
because that's the way the garlic adapts to their climate. It's
understandable to think that they have a different strain (and it appears
from David's talk that they really did think they had developed something
new), but the DNA fingerprinting is proving that they really don't.

Now that the USDA collection has been fingerprinted, the whole naming issue
is going to be huge. For instance, for those of us in the Northeast, the
Porcelain garlics have done the best. Now, the DNA fingerprinting is
showing that genetically, there is only one Porcelain garlic. I suggested
that those of us who maintain collections simply cull our Porcelain
"strains" to the one that performs the best for us. But, out of all those
names, what the heck do we call it if Music=German Extra Hardy=German
White=Georgia Crystal, etc?

Life in the garlic world is just going to get more interesting -- and I'd
like to see a whole lot more discussion about how the community is going to
deal with fulsarium that getting bogged down in the variety/naming issue.

Dorene

Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator
St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden and Labyrinth

A mission of
St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA 19460









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