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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: Permaculture Plant Database <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] Synth, comments, etc
  • Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 23:01:44 -0800

Bear K wrote:


The message from John D'hondt actually tied in well with a couple of books I've found recently called Return to Resistance, and Self-Organizing Agro-Ecosystems by Raoul A. Robinson (available free online as PDF's from http://sharebooks.ca). It's a recommended book if you don't know of it already. Raoul is a crop scientist, and talks about the difference between "vertical" (modern, single-gene parasite resistance that parasites can evolve around) and "horizontal" resistance (multi-gene resistance, that can't be easily adapted around). Also some history of a variety of crops (potatoes, etc), and the recent obsession with Mendelian breeding, vs "qualitative" breeding. It's all been rather informative. The techniques of D'hondt are very much what Robinson would recommend (save seed, maintain parasite pressure [don't destroy the affected crop] and select seed from crops that are forming resistance).

Here is a followup message from the PC list (apologies of you are a
subscriber and have
already seen it):

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [permaculture] [Fwd: Re: [SANET-MG] soybean rust a new dread]
}|{ potato culture in blight-infested soils
Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 20:22:37 -0500
From: michael snow <msnow@mountainschool.org>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>

I'm not sure what message this responds to, that is, what the concern is.
I'm new here, and don't want to step into a conversation I haven't followed
from the beginning. But here's a thought:
Breeding resistance. The potato anecdote reminds me of what is called
Horizontal Resistance, that is, breeding polygenic resistance in plants.
Such a program would expose a population to ALL pests, parasites, diseases,
etc that occurr locally or regionally, the inocculation roguing the
population in its own way. Horizontal resistance is accumulated using
recurrent mass selection: the surviving individuals are selected en masse
and improved up on in the next generation.
So, pick the beans that don't get rust.
see Return to Resistance, Roul A. Robinson. 1996: agAccess, Davis.


--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech




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