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Say NO to GM spuds! Just got this message via email:
Dear Potato Lover,Save our Sarpos!
The Sarvari Research Trust and therefore the Sarpo varieties are in real trouble. At a time when there is a global push to make GM potato varieties acceptable, the Trust has run out of money and sources of funding. It struggles to get by day-to-day, often subsidized by David Shaw’s pension. Their varieties are the result of decades of conventional cross breeding successfully to gain resistance genes from potato near-relatives.
Like most of the UK, Kettlebridge has had devastating blight since July yet my Sarpo Mira plants are still growing strongly – all other garden varieties in the village are long dead. Recently a Dutch team of genetists working on Sarpo Mira found it to be the most blight resistant variety that has ever existed with a unique complex of resistance genes including at least one never found before.
Crowd funding could save SRT. I have known for some time that an appreciation of the heritage and the worth of potato varieties lies mainly in the hands of gardeners – perhaps the future of spuds lies in the same hands. Please click on the link and donate what you can, then pass this message on to all you can think of who might help. There are still a few more varieties in the pipeline including “Crow” – I think “Crowdpleaser” would be better!
https://www.buzzbnk.org/ProjectDetai...x?projectId=84
And a postscript from Julian Turner, East Anglia Potato Day ‘The Sarvari Trust has been squeezed for funds from the outset. Its origins are the cultivars that were developed in Bulgaria to feed its population when the Stalinist era was still in full swing. The operation in Bangor has been inspirational in producing so much with so little support. Its director, David Shaw, was our speaker one year back in the Giffords Hall days.I will just remind folks that, in addition to the Sarpo prefixed varieties, there is also Blue Danube and Kifli.
http://sarvari-trust.org/in-the-pipeline.html
is worth a look.’
Dear Potato Lover,Save our Sarpos!
The Sarvari Research Trust and therefore the Sarpo varieties are in real trouble. At a time when there is a global push to make GM potato varieties acceptable, the Trust has run out of money and sources of funding. It struggles to get by day-to-day, often subsidized by David Shaw’s pension. Their varieties are the result of decades of conventional cross breeding successfully to gain resistance genes from potato near-relatives.
Like most of the UK, Kettlebridge has had devastating blight since July yet my Sarpo Mira plants are still growing strongly – all other garden varieties in the village are long dead. Recently a Dutch team of genetists working on Sarpo Mira found it to be the most blight resistant variety that has ever existed with a unique complex of resistance genes including at least one never found before.
Crowd funding could save SRT. I have known for some time that an appreciation of the heritage and the worth of potato varieties lies mainly in the hands of gardeners – perhaps the future of spuds lies in the same hands. Please click on the link and donate what you can, then pass this message on to all you can think of who might help. There are still a few more varieties in the pipeline including “Crow” – I think “Crowdpleaser” would be better!
https://www.buzzbnk.org/ProjectDetai...x?projectId=84
And a postscript from Julian Turner, East Anglia Potato Day ‘The Sarvari Trust has been squeezed for funds from the outset. Its origins are the cultivars that were developed in Bulgaria to feed its population when the Stalinist era was still in full swing. The operation in Bangor has been inspirational in producing so much with so little support. Its director, David Shaw, was our speaker one year back in the Giffords Hall days.I will just remind folks that, in addition to the Sarpo prefixed varieties, there is also Blue Danube and Kifli.
http://sarvari-trust.org/in-the-pipeline.html
is worth a look.’
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