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10:13 pm
Tue 28-Jun-11
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Shereen
| | Near Belfast, Northen Ireland | |
|  Expert | posts 780 | |
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G sent me this article from National Geographic because it reminded him of one of the many rants I've ranted at him over the years.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/food-ark…..ty-graphic
Look at the top of the graph, and then at the same vegetable at the bottom of the graph. Some of the reductions are really quite remarkable. I've ranted the rant about the reduction in the range of apples, pears and strawberries we can get these days; but I'd never stopped to consider the wider implications of the decrease for our fruit and veg intake.
And, to add insult to injury both plant stalls at the market were only selling Elsanta strawberry plants this Spring because so many people had been asking for them. 
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9:47 am
Wed 29-Jun-11
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devongarden
| | Devon, UK | |
|  Councillor | posts 1195 | |
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See here for information on the Heritage Seed Library which campaigns on this in the UK. And they supply seed to a company that grows the plants–I can't remember which company, but they produce plug plants, I will try to remember where I saw this and look it up–because you can't see the seed but you can sell plants grown from the seed.
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9:53 am
Wed 29-Jun-11
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devongarden
| | Devon, UK | |
| Councillor | posts 1195 | |
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And there are great reductions in the vitamin and mineral content of commercially grown vegetables over the last 60 years. The studies that form the basis of textbook lists of the values of foods were done before widespread use of fertilizers and pesticides, and studies done recently suggest that the values have fallen, or plummetted in some cases. A few studies show that veg grown organically have higher vit. and min. content than conventionally grown ones. I know there has been a study on lettuce, and there are others.
Presumably using compost and feeding the soil feeds the plants better than fertilizer does.
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9:58 am
Wed 29-Jun-11
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Toffeeapple
| | North Bucks | |
| | posts 9188 | |
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It's the same with bananas, in the whole world, only one variety is sold commercially, so if there were to be a disease that wiped out that variety, we'd have no commercial back-up. There are other varieties but they are not grown in great enough quantity to replace the other.
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10:04 am
Wed 29-Jun-11
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Hattie
| | Bucks/Oxon Border | |
|  Supreme Being | posts 4316 | |
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devongarden said:
See here for information on the Heritage Seed Library which campaigns on this in the UK. And they supply seed to a company that grows the plants–I can't remember which company, but they produce plug plants, I will try to remember where I saw this and look it up–because you can't see the seed but you can sell plants grown from the seed.
Your link takes me to the CSH forum list…….  I think something has gone wrong with your link. 
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Those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass. Confucius
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10:30 am
Wed 29-Jun-11
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devongarden
| | Devon, UK | |
| Councillor | posts 1195 | |
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Ok, will try again. 
Heritage seed library link
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11:29 am
Wed 29-Jun-11
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Toffeeapple
| | North Bucks | |
| | posts 9188 | |
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 Barbara!
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5:27 pm
Wed 29-Jun-11
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kayerunrig
| | lincolnshire | |
| Expert | posts 606 | |
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im a great believer in old varieties , just on the grounds that if you save your own seed each year they gradually adapt to the ground and enviroment around them , never had any great sucess with F1 varieties at all ,always seem to look good but lack in taste ..Strawberries have travelled 3 times , and were originally given to me by an old lady probably mongrels, all i know is we have huge ones , warty ones and little ones and theyre good!
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7:52 pm
Wed 29-Jun-11
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JoannaS
| | Latvia | |
| Supreme Being | posts 4314 | |
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Toffeeapple said:
It's the same with bananas, in the whole world, only one variety is sold commercially, so if there were to be a disease that wiped out that variety, we'd have no commercial back-up. There are other varieties but they are not grown in great enough quantity to replace the other.
I went to Brazil a few times and on one trip I was given a banana, it was a little thing not like the big yellow ones you get in Europe and it had quite a different taste too, kind of perfumey if I remember rightly.
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