Praia da Macumba, Rio de Janeiro
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Jatropha Curcas
Introduction
J. curcas is a well-known wild species, which is being planted as a crop. However it is not yet at the domesticated status and a lot of basic work needs to be done before it can be called a crop. It has made headlines over the past few years as a species that can be planted in semi-arid or wastelands for bio-fuel production. This is not the case if reasonable yields are expected; inputs are needed.
It is allogamous. At IFAD’s International Consultation on Pro-poor Jatropha Development in April 2008 I represented FAO as a consultant and my questions on the degree of allogamy, whether only insects are the pollination agents or if wind is involved could not be answered. Also, there is little information on the pollination mechanism involved.
I have worked with GEXSI on suitable areas for J. curcas production (coupled with Good Agricultural Practices – GAP); In May 2008 GEXSI prepared the GEXSI/WWF Global Market Study on Jatropha where 176 experts in 55 countries were interviewed.
I have also worked for FAO in Mauritania regarding the suitability of J. curcas as hedging to protect food crops in the South and in Myanmar to advise on suitable production areas and GAP.
A collection of J. curcas provenances at Myanmar’s Seed Research Centre at the Capital (Nay Pyi Taw). The origins are Malaysia, Thailand and India. Picture by P. Griffee 2007.
One of its advantages as a bio-fuel is that seeds can be conserved for months before processing (if appropriate drying and storage conditions are met the fatty acid profile remains very similar to the fresh seed).
Propagation
The most important factor in propagation (in areas with a significant dry season) is taproot formation; whether the propagation is for direct planting from provenances (mass selection) or for grafting etc. I personally recommend the polybag nursery, whatever the future intent; this produces a good taproot system. Cuttings do not form a suitable taproot.
To be continued
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FAO Knowledge Management Work
The following are some of my major-impacting activities during 11 years with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as senior officer, industrial crops in Rome (retired April 2006).
Following retirement I have worked as a consultant for WHO on a monograph on the anti-malarial Artemisia annua and for FAO on bio-fuel species and their ecologies and industrial crops in general.
Knowledge management
This is one of my major contributions; delivering applicable plant knowledge to those in need. The major instrument used for this is the EcoPort protected knowledge commons. Another very popular site is Ecocrop;crop environmental requirements. Each is reverse-linked to the other where appropriate.
EcoPort
I began working with EcoPort’s data base predecessor in April 1998; introduced by the system’s creator Tonie Putter. Since then I have been a supervisor and the gatekeeper for plant records. It was re-launched in 2004 using open source software and techniques and now uses a combination of Linux, Apache, MySQL and mod_perl, a system commonly referred to as LAMP. The main front page sponsors are Nelson Mandela, Ed Wilson and FAO’s Director General Jacques Diouf.
The EcoPort splash page.
As all the information in EcoPort is assembled as the sum of the individual contributions of many authors, the data are collectively owned and maintained by a global community of scientists who share their expertise and experience. Individuals adopt entities (usually database records), in their specialties and enter state-of-knowledge information about them. Any one contributor, or reader, has access to the sum of all similar contributions and the sum of all information constitutes the EcoPort public “knowledge commons”.
The Founders of EcoPort share a belief in knowledge as a global public good, for reasons amply illustrated in the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson: “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me”.
FAO views the attainment of food security as a moral imperative – an outcome that is heavily dependent on harnessing knowledge more effectively. A central FAO strategy is to work through strategic alliances and towards this end FAO’s Office of the Director General signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the EcoPort Foundation in August 2005.
It is EcoPort’s Mission and Pledge to:
- Establish and sustain a “Knowledge Commons” where individuals and communities can work and learn together to develop sustainable ways to manage the Earth’s natural resources;
- Facilitate access to information through a public service that will enable participants to own and update the knowledge created by their collective effort through application of EcoPort’s procedures;
- Promote the availability and use of EcoPort’s information and procedures as a Global Public Good to provide education to communities and individuals engaged in natural resources management and conservation; and to
- Make provision to ensure data quality through peer review and to preserve and display individual ownership of shared information.
Ecocrop
Ecocrop matches plants to environment and concomitantly searches by plant uses and growth habit. At the moment there are over 2200 species in the database. It will shortly undergo a development phase to:
- Introduce an open source platform and direct CD-ROM down-load facility
- Provide a map function providing data on climate and soil conditions with plant potential distribution maps
- Identify plants for a defined farming system
- Add 300 new species
Work on Ecocrop is with the major inputs of Per Diemer, FAO consultant.
The Ecocrop home page
With Ecocrop you can presently:
- Identify a suitable crop for a specified environment. Select Search: Enter information about your local climate and soil conditions, such as temperature, rainfall, light, soil texture, depth, pH, salinity and fertility. Ecocrop then identifies plant species with key climate and soil requirements that match the data you have entered.
- Identify a crop with a specific habit of growth. Select Search: Specify one or more characteristic of a plant, such as life form and span, growth habit, crop category and form of cultivation. Ecocrop then identifies plant species that match your data.
- Identify crop for a defined use. Select Search: Specify one or more use(s) and Ecocrop identifies according to your choice plant species for food, fodder or pasture, green manure, energy, fibre, timber, paper pulp, shelter and shade, industrial purposes, erosion control, ornamentals and many other uses.
- Look up the environmental requirements and uses of a given crop. Select Find plant: Specify the plant species of you interest and use Ecocrop as a checklist or library to look up its climate and soil requirements and uses.
- Learn to use Ecocrop with the Tutorial: Open a new window with a tutorial that teaches the basics of using Ecocrop.
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Artemisia annua (annual wormwood)
Good Agricultural and Collection Practices
In August of 2005 I was funded by the World Health Organization (WHO) to represent FAO in Nanning, Guanxi, China at the meeting to finalize the monograph on ‘The WHO Guidelines on Good Agricultural and Collection Practices for A. annua. See the EcoPort record on A. annua and the EcoPort article.
Brief description of A. annua
A. annua is a vigorous, annual, aromatic, herbaceous plant reaching 1-3 m height and 1 m in width. It is a crop for the production of anti-malarial and possibly antibacterial agents and natural pesticides. It was originally collected by the Chinese as an herbal medicine and is currently processed by pharmaceutical firms for the production of artemisinin for the WHO initiative on Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTs) in the treatment of malaria. ACTs have been shown to have; rapid resolution to fever and parasitaemia; low toxicity and are well tolerated. The artemisinin compounds are effective against Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax, including multi-drug-resistant strains.
A. annua pictured by me in Jingxi County, China, close to the Vietnam border; showing the aromatic leaves.
The author examining plants of Artemisia annua in NanNing, Guangxi, China. Travel supported by WHO in July 2005 under the WHO ‘Consultation for Good Agricultural and Collection Practices’ (GACP).
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Elaeis guineensis (oil palm)
Cold tolerance
Due to the discovery of cold tolerance in ‘dura’ oil palm in Africa it became possible to plant ‘tenera’ hybrids for crop diversification in Africa at high altitudes where there is good rainfall. For example in W. Ethiopia, N. Malawi, N. Cameroon, N.W. Zambia and W. Kenya up to 1500 masl. I conducted these projects for FAO in collaboration with the breeders of ASD Costa Rica. The resulting hybrids also had drought tolerance, high yields and precocity. See the EcoPort record on oil palm and the Smallholder Oil Palm Manual.
Brief description of E. guineensis
The oil palm is one of the largest of the palm species; it has a single stem (up to 22-75 cm in diameter and 18-30 m tall). It has a few deeply penetrating roots that anchor the tree; most roots grow superficially and horizontally as far away as 20 m from the plant’s base and this is why soil compaction and disturbance must be avoided. It produces the largest amount of oil per hectare when compared with other oil crops. 20 t/ha of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) will give at least 4 t/ha of oil. My work mainly applies to smallholder well-being: red palm oil, when correctly extracted, has a low free fatty acid content and long shelf life at ambient temperature due to the anti-oxidants present. It gives isolated villages access to vitamin A and E, cooking oil and soap produced from oil palm on farms or in gardens.
E. guineensis – botanical illustration. Thanks to the Missouri Botanical Garden for this image.
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Sorghum bicolor var. “sweet” (sweet sorghum)
The new hybrids
The recent discovery of male sterility in sweet sorghum by Prof. Li Dajue has facilitated the production of hybrids which have considerable potential for future small and large-scale exploitation. These have high sugar content and higher biomass than the conventional sweet sorghums. For more information on sweet sorghum see the EcoPort record and the Sweet sorghum training manual.
In 2007 I was employed by IFAD to help organize The Global consultation on pro-poor sweet sorghum development for biofuel production.
Brief description of sweet sorghum
It is a single-stemmed grass (a cereal) reaching a height of 1-5m. It is usually taller than grain sorghum, is drought and saline resistant, yields a very high biomass and can be grown on degraded soils where sugarcane is uneconomical. It is a versatile multi-use “4 F” species (as coined by myself and Prof. Li Dajue): – Food, Fuel, Fodder and Fibre. It can be grown as a grain, sugar, feed or an energy crop for making alcohol and electricity. An FAO project introduced technology to semi-arid regions of China for production of ethanol and fodder. The stem fibres are used for composites.
Sweet sorghum breeding trials pictured by me at the Beijing Botanic Gardens with the champion of sweet sorghum development, Prof. Li Dajue.
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