51st state

I agree with all that

but feel that there is a disconnect between the scientific communiy and the hobbists. If we were to cooperate then things would move forward faster.

These days funding for projects in this research area are tight and by involving hobbists you could co-fund breeding programmes. As I said in an earlier post it is essential to the survival/development of some of the wild species/lesser cultivars that they have a commercial value. Why should a local farmer in West Bengal India, grow M. 'Dhussray', when he could grow a more disease resistant and faster growing/fruiting commercial form. In 20 years time it may be the case that no-one grows this landrace and any valuable genetic code/traits would be lost. The Indian govt. agency NCRB has in recent years carried out extensive collection of accessions but even they do not yet have them all.

Lets look at some of Markku Hakkinen's newly described species. Apart from them being identified,described and holotypes being deposited. What has been done to propagate and disseminate this material? I'll bet the world seed bank at Kew do not yet have genetic material and as yet I can as yet find no reference to it on the webpages of Bioversity International. By cooperation with someone like TianZi it should be possible to begin limited scale commercial propagation, benfitting not only hobbyists but local people.

It would be interesting to have communications with BI to explore ways in which the wider community can help as what we are proposing here chimes completely with BI's mission statement.

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