Plums with no Pits

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists are making progress in determining the genes that control pit formation in plums—the first step in a project to develop pitless varieties of this fruit.

ARS molecular biologists Chris Dardick and Ann Callahan and Prunus breeder Ralph Scorza at the ARS Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, W.Va., discovered that a set of genes necessary for production of lignin is rapidly turned on specifically in pit tissue—not the flesh or skin—just before hardening. Then these genes quiet down just as quickly after the stone hardens.

Lignin is a material involved in the formation of pits in stone fruit. Fruit pits consist of the seed and the hard woody material, or stone, surrounding the seed.

The researchers' goal is to establish techniques to stop the genes' activity and prevent hardening of the pit, thus producing a pitless plum that would be more appealing to consumers. Pitless fruit would be a premium product that could provide higher income for growers and could increase consumption of these nutritious foods.

The idea of pitless fruits is not new. In the early 1900s, Luther Burbank, a prolific horticulturalist, crossed a partially stoneless wild plum with California French prune varieties. These crosses led to commercial-quality fruit that almost completely lacked the stone, but still contained the seed. The group used samples of Burbank's crosses for their work.

Read more here.

By Sharon Durham
April 21, 2009
Photo: Ripe plum fruit from one of Burbank’s remaining stoneless selections. The fruit is cut to reveal a naked seed surrounded by a cavity where the stone would normally form.
Photo by Mark Demuth.

Botany of Desire - the Musical!

No kidding!

In April 2009, director Alex Harvey and composer John Gromada will be artists-in-residence at the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley, developing a new theatrical adaptation of the book The Botany of Desire by Professor of Journalism Michael Pollan. During the residency they will lead a workshop with an ensemble of student actors and singers that will conclude with a public work-in-progress reading of a section of the play on Friday, April 24th, 2009, at 5:30pm in Wheeler Auditorium on the Berkeley campus.

The reading will be introduced by remarks from Harvey and Gromada and followed by comments by Michael Pollan and a question and answer session with the audience.

The event is free, but tickets are required. Tickets are available online, by phone at 510.642.9988, at the Zellerbach Hall Ticket Office (Tues-Fri 10am-5:30pm, Sat-Sun 1-5pm), and at Wheeler Auditorium one hour prior to event.

For more information on this and other events that are part of this project, go here.

Scientists Sequence Citrus Disease Bacterium

ARS scientists have sequenced the genome of the bacteria that causes citrus greening, a disease that threatens the nations's $2.2 billion citrus industry. Click here for the full story.

Photo by Keith Weller

Sonoma Valley Olive Festival

It's the last month of the Sonoma Valley Olive Festival - sounds interesting.

Maybe a CRFG band would liven things up

Here is some music made from vegetables.

There must be plenty of fruit that would work as well.

I like this one even better.

Got Pumpkin Pie? Thank a Bee!

Would pumpkin pie be as plentiful without the diligent efforts of pumpkin-pollinating bees? Perhaps not.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologist James Cane and his colleagues are discovering more about America’s native bees that pollinate pumpkins, other squashes, and gourds. Most of these bees are members of the genus Peponapis or the genus Xenoglossa, according to Cane. He’s based at the agency’s Pollinating Insects Biology, Management and Systematics Research Unit in Logan, Utah.

Cane has shown, for the first time, that male Peponapis pruinosa play a surprisingly significant role in pollinating the blossoms of yellow summer squash. In the past, less than 10 percent of pollination has been attributed to male bees.
With both male and female bees on the job, fewer bees overall would be needed, according to Cane. That’s a plus for growers and beekeepers because it suggests that increasingly scarce, in-demand hives of honey bees could be freed up for work elsewhere.

Read more about this research in the November/December 2008 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

Pomegranate Tasting at Wolfskill

The tasting took place in the little house you first encounter as you drive in, and it was packed! I counted at least 100 people at one point, most not from CRFG, and more kept coming. I asked Jeff Moersfelder if he knew why there were so many, and he said it was partly that more people were growing pomegranates these days (15,000 acres in the Central Valley, way up from just a few years ago) and the growers were passing the word on to their neighbors, partly that the word went around in UC Extension circles, and, especially, among the Master Gardeners. In any case, it was quite a mob.

They had laid out a lovely display of 17 pomegranates (bowls of arils and whole fruit) and half a dozen non-astringent persimmons (slices, whole fruit, and beautiful fall foliage) on tables in the middle of the room. There were forms for taking notes, and a tally sheet where they asked people to write their favorites. It looked as though the pomegranates Ariana , Ink, and Parfianka were in the lead, although my favorite was Molla Nepes. I liked that one because the flavor was strong, not too sweet, and had a good “sustain,” whereas the others faded quickly. My favorite from last year, Al-sirin-nar, was not on the table this time. Izu was the clear favorite among the persimmons.

Malli Aradhya spoke very briefly. He said the pomegranate has been around for at least 10,000 years. There are pomegranates that can grow in almost any climate, and yet all that variety is contained within only one species, the only one in the genus Punica. You can read more about their collection here.

After an hour or so they began loading up the vans, to ferry people out to the trees of pomegranates and persimmons, where we were invited to take as much fruit as we wanted. The only request was that people not take too much from any one tree, so that everyone could get some of the good ones. Some people managed to sneak out there in their private cars, and some were so impatient they walked rather than wait for the vans, which were constantly shuttling people back and forth. Some people took home buckets and buckets of fruit, some just a few, but for all, as usual, it was a real treat to be able to stroll through all the trees and see the many varieties of fruit “on the hoof.”

Malli said, seeing the huge turnout, that they were thinking of turning the tasting into a pomegranate festival. Click here to go to the website of the Wolfskill germplasm repository.

Aftermath.