I was once in Egypt Cairo. As it was surprising what poor quality of oranges there was both along the streets and in the hotels (1979!) I spoke with an Egyptian about this phenomenon. I asked why that was that way, while in Spain they had I thought perhaps nearly the same soil and climate?
He said that they also had the same quality, but as those "orange groves? (groves of oranges?)),  the better ones, were surveyed many times by agricultural engineers and with soil improvements and selected races many times modified for the regional climate, they were normally that expensive that they only were for the export to the rich countries and unpayable for the people in the street and even for the hotels.

And as there are recently a lot of news in Belgium about plants and fruits not normal on our 51 latitude? I was again thinking at that episode in Egypt...
With "plant breeding" better opportunities for poorer soil and or extreme or not appropriate climate? And BTW what is the difference with grafting?

And is Belgium  a front runner? 

Even soja beans in Belgium...
https://vilt.be/nl/nieuws/arvesta-wil-evolueren-naar-1000-hectare-soja-in-belgie

And even "tea" in Belgium...
https://www.gva.be/cnt/dmf20210301_97340649
But I see that it is cultivated in a greenhouse...
And how is the situation in Britain? Own grown tea? Or is that not competitive with the traditional sources?

Edit of the content.

Where to start?

Firstly, oranges bought from street kids in Egypt ... it's hardly a surprise they weren't the finest quality. I expect all the best ones would have been sold wholesale to supply local markets, national stores or for export, the ones you got sold at the side of the road, by kids trying to earn a few coppers, were probably the rejects from harvesting, or the small ones routinely cleared from the trees and discarded, to allow the others to grow bigger.

Yes, plant breeding probably helps in developing varieties that can be grown in conditions removed from where they originally developed. However a lot of the ability to grow things like tomatoes, peppers and aubergines in more northerly latitudes such as Belgium, is down to industrial scale raising of the plants in greenhouses. I've currently got about twenty seed trays on the window-sills of my south-facing living room germinating seeds of tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes, peppers, chilies and pumpkins ... all plants that need a long hot growing season to produce a decent crop. Here the summer should certainly be hot enough to grow them outside to maturity, but it is too short if I have to wait until I could sow the seed outside in about May. None of these plants can survive any frost at all hence why I can't get them outside much earlier and why they do not survive naturally here. Accordingly I have to get them started inside now, in pots and trays on sunny window-sills and above radiators for warmth. I will need to repot them into individual pots in a few weeks and can only start to move them outside (initially only during the day) in about mid/late April: they require cosseting and it can be a quite laborious attending to their needs. That's fine for me growing just a few in my garden but it would be a different matter if it was my business, hence why a lot of these summer vegetables still come from where it is hotter for longer: southern France, Spain and Portugal (yes, I know I'm in southern France too but I'm at 500m altitude: it makes a big difference).

Tea is another tropical/sub-tropical plant, of the camellia family, but it's an evergreen, perennial bush so once established at a reasonable size I'm not surprised to learn that it will grow in more northerly climates: I have flowering camellias in my garden. One of your links - until you removed it - showed two places in Britain that are successfully growing tea as a commercial crop to be in Cornwall and in Western Scotland. These are both areas greatly influenced by the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream and hence why there are famous sub-tropical botanic gardens there too, such as at Tresco Abbey and Inverewe. However I would imagine it's only commercially viable to produce a crop because they rely on the novelty and uniqueness of the product and hence why their teas are so expensive. It still makes more sense to import tea (a concentrated, lightweight, relatively non-perishable product) from places where it thrives (China, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya etc). Nevertheless you might be interested in the situation in Iceland. Iceland is not a country one would normally associate with growing tropical fruit, but because of its vast geo-thermal resources it is viable to heat and light huge greenhouses and so they can commercially produce tropical fruits such as bananas, avocados and pineapples.



Plant breeding relies on raising plants from seed, either natually fertilized by bees etc, or, especially if trying to create hybrid plants between different but related species, by manually transferring pollen; and then sorting through the resulting offspring to select for traits you want such as height, colour, hardiness etc, and then repeating the process over successive generations - just as one selectively breeds animals. Grafting it a technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together, eg one can grow a plant on the base/roots of another. It is used, for example, to propagate many commercial varieties of fruit tree by attaching a growing 'twig' of the plant you want onto the rootstock of a hardy uncultivated tree. This means that the tree that grows from the 'twig' develops as a clone of the parent tree, with all the same characteristics. If left to propagate by seed these characteristics may be lost and indeed one of the characteriscs might be for the fruit to be completely seedless, hence the only way to propagate such a plant is by grafting.

Plant breeding is a compicated, multi-million euro business, but it can be done on an amateur level. I grow pumpkins, peppers and tomatoes, which are all usually eaten when the fruit and seeds are ripe (unlike say courgettes which are usually eaten before the seeds have formed). Thus when cooking I can extract the seeds and grow next year's crop using my own seed. I do this mostly for thrift not having to buy seed every year, but I do also select for certain traits in the seeds I collect. I do eat my pumpkins (they keep well and I'm still eating the ones I harvested back in October) but I grow them as much for decoration, accordingly I usually grow three of four different types in terms of colour and shape and I generally want the biggest fruits possible. These different varieties are all the same species, Cucurbita pepo, so they will readily cross-fertilize and thus there's always the possibility of getting something new (or of course a desirable characteristic may gradually get lost over the generations, hence why I do occaisionally buy fresh seed). Similarly peppers and tomatoes will readily cross-fertilize, not only with the varieties I'm growing but also with those growing in the neighbours' gardens. Last year I unexpectedly got some yellow and red striped tomatoes on one tomato plant, so I carefully kept the seed from those fruits to grow this year. The little plants are currently only about 4cm tall and it will be late June at the earliest before I get any tomatoes off them. And of course there's no guarantee they will be true to the mother plant: they may just turn out the usual red ... or not even produce any fruit at all.

Tea grown in Belgium? why not? After all https://tregothnan.co.uk/

Green George wrote:

Tea grown in Belgium? why not? After all https://tregothnan.co.uk/

Thanks for the link Gil and it gives a lot of information and I learned from it, including this information...
https://tregothnan.co.uk/estate/
What great places Britain has. It could be a trip for my old days (the eighties and expecting the nineties till 100 and you never know...) And I made it only till Exeter in the time with a go as you please railway pass...

Sparked by Meles' interesting reply and still breeding on an answer to him, while I want to expand, or perhaps starting a new thread about the history of isolation, green houses, solar panels, hydrogen, climate change and all...even about a certain Bill Gates...

Kind regards, Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

Yes, plant breeding probably helps in developing varieties that can be grown in conditions removed from where they originally developed. However a lot of the ability to grow things like tomatoes, peppers and aubergines in more northerly latitudes such as Belgium, is down to industrial scale raising of the plants in greenhouses. I've currently got about twenty seed trays on the window-sills of my south-facing living room germinating seeds of tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes, peppers, chilies and pumpkins ... all plants that need a long hot growing season to produce a decent crop. Here the summer should certainly be hot enough to grow them outside to maturity, but it is too short if I have to wait until I could sow the seed outside in about May. None of these plants can survive any frost at all hence why I can't get them outside much earlier and why they do not survive naturally here. Accordingly I have to get them started inside now, in pots and trays on sunny window-sills and above radiators for warmth. I will need to repot them into individual pots in a few weeks and can only start to move them outside (initially only during the day) in about mid/late April: they require cosseting and it can be a quite laborious attending to their needs. That's fine for me growing just a few in my garden but it would be a different matter if it was my business, hence why a lot of these summer vegetables still come from where it is hotter for longer: southern France, Spain and Portugal (yes, I know I'm in southern France too but I'm at 500m altitude: it makes a big difference).

Quote :

Plant breeding is a complicated, multi-million euro business, but it can be done on an amateur level. I grow pumpkins, peppers and tomatoes, which are all usually eaten when the fruit and seeds are ripe (unlike say courgettes which are usually eaten before the seeds have formed). Thus when cooking I can extract the seeds and grow next year's crop using my own seed. I do this mostly for thrift not having to buy seed every year, but I do also select for certain traits in the seeds I collect. I do eat my pumpkins (they keep well and I'm still eating the ones I harvested back in October) but I grow them as much for decoration, accordingly I usually grow three of four different types in terms of colour and shape and I generally want the biggest fruits possible. These different varieties are all the same species, Cucurbita pepo, so they will readily cross-fertilize and thus there's always the possibility of getting something new (or of course a desirable characteristic may gradually get lost over the generations, hence why I do occaisionally buy fresh seed). Similarly peppers and tomatoes will readily cross-fertilize, not only with the varieties I'm growing but also with those growing in the neighbours' gardens. Last year I unexpectedly got some yellow and red striped tomatoes on one tomato plant, so I carefully kept the seed from those fruits to grow this year. The little plants are currently only about 4cm tall and it will be late June at the earliest before I get any tomatoes off them. And of course there's no guarantee they will be true to the mother plant: they may just turn out the usual red ... or not even produce any fruit at all.

MM, what I learned all from you in this short résumé...thank you.

Of course we had it perhaps in the lessons biology...and we had a big garden even in my parents first renovated house already a greenhouse and in our second new even a larger one. Father used it only for grapes (we bought the grapevines near Brussels in a region known for the best grapevines). At a certain year we had more than 100 kg grapes. Then he changed for the half in tomatoes.
And yes today learning, thanks to you, again about long forgotten lessons. At twelfe in the first year "Latin-Greek" we had to draw a lily from a real example. And mine was the best. Of course such things one remembers . And as I see it now



I also learned about the male and female parts of the flower and still remember "meeldraden en stempel"



And thanks MM for the trouble to explain the difference between plant breeding and grafting and all what you do to raise your plants. My father did also a lot of trouble for his garden, first ordering from a post ordering the seeds in small pictured paper sachets and then planting the seeds in small foam containers filled with extra cultivating soil and in the greenhouse and watering them regularly...and as said in the greenhouse 100 kilos grapes...at 4 KM from the Belgian coast...

And so I come to the ecological effect of greenhouses. On our 51° latitude and on your Southern France 500 metres height, a  lot is not possible as for plants as tomatoes...I was in a greenhouse only a few miles from Bruges...nearly one hectare (nearly 10,000 square yards) of greenhouses...all computer steered...some glasses go open or close gradualy and automatically due to the inner temperature. During winter steam heating but perhaps in the future heat exchangers pumping relatively hot water from under the ground? Electricity from sun and heat panels transformed in  liquid hydrogen stored in tanks and used when later more electrical energy is needed again... ...

And he says he is competitive on the market, while the competitors has to pay for the transport from the South of Europe and the circuit producer-client is much shorter than in the competitor's case...
And someone of the insiders said that the greenhouse productions of vegetables in Holland is even much bigger...

Kind regards, Paul.

PS: I had some trouble with the term "plant breeding" as for me "breeding" is like a chicken on its eggs...
We say "plantenveredeling" (veredeling: from "enoble", "improve") therefore why not "plant improvement"?

PPS: and we have not spoken yet about GMO crops...again the burocratic role of the EU or simply a way of protecting their market or indeed scientifically?...again some Brexit style difficulties?...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_in_the_European_Union

PaulRyckier wrote:

I was once in Egypt Cairo. As it was surprising what poor quality of oranges there was both along the streets and in the hotels (1979!) I spoke with an Egyptian about this phenomenon. I asked why that was that way, while in Spain they had I thought perhaps nearly the same soil and climate?

It’s also significant Paul that your experience of the poor quality oranges in Egypt took place in the 1970s. The perceptions and assumptions about the world and its produce which we may have had back then are in need of radical updating. For example, in the 1970s Jaffa oranges were still a world-famous export and also formed an important source of revenue for Israel. Their fame had gone from strength to strength ever since they first reached European breakfast tables from the Levant in the 1840s. In the intervening years, however, orange production in Israel has contracted markedly while orange production in Egypt now ranks that country among the top 10 producers in the world even ahead of Spain. By contrast, Israel now doesn’t even make it into the top 20.



(1930s poster advertising Jaffa produce.)

Similarly, who in the 1970s would have believed that Egypt would become one of the world’s largest producers of potatoes regularly supplying hundreds of thousands of tons of new Maris Pipers to European supermarkets each spring? And it’s not just Egypt. In the 1970s the idea that China would become (by far!) the world’s largest producer of potatoes would have been beyond fanciful. China currently produces more than double the tonnage of potatoes of the country in second place which is India. That ranking itself would also have raised eyebrows in the 1970s and indeed can still do so today. The history of the current gastronomic revolution taking place in Asia, whereby potatoes are becoming a staple in countries which previously consumed primarily grain, has yet to be written.

Staying in east Asia, but moving away from oranges and potatoes, we also have the phenomenal growth of coffee production in Vietnam. That country now ranks in second place behind Brazil and ahead of Colombia. Vietnam is also the world’s largest producer of robusta coffee beans – even ahead of Brazil in that. When American troops were pulling out of Vietnam in the 1970s, who among them one wonders would have imagined that providing much of the world with its ‘cup of joe’ was to be the peaceful future of that country.

Thanks Vizzer for your information of which I mostly wasn't aware of. Potatoes, by God, China and India...who would have expected that...in Egypt there are new areas in the desert for potato cultivation, but as I read it now it is a bit as in California, using water from deep under the ground, which will once be ended as the oil fields?
https://thefurrow.co.uk/irrigation-cultivation-in-the-desert-sekem-egypt/
But perhaps in a few years they will use water from desalinisation made possible by big solar farms' electricity?

And yes greenhouses computer steered, as I mentioned: in the neighbourhood of Bruges: for among others tomatoes...
http://www.worldstopexports.com/tomatoes-exports-country/
Mexico: 2.2 billion (24.1%) of world export
Netherlands: $2 billion (22%)
Spain: $1.1 billion (11.7%)
Morocco: $765.2 million (8.5%)
France: $381.5 million (4.3%)
Canada: $379.2 million (4.2%)
Belgium: $308.9 million (3.4%)
Turkey: $303.1 million (3.4%)
United States: $291.7 million (3.3%)
China: $200.2 million (2.2%)
Azerbaijan: $189.3 million (2.1%)
Italy: $131.8 million (1.5%)
Poland: $71.1 million (0.8%)
Portugal: $67.6 million (0.8%)
Belarus: $52.2 million (0.6%)

Belgium on 51 latitude and Portugal on 39.5 and both 10 million inhabitants: Belgium $ 308 million and Portugal $ 67.6 million. I agree it is perhaps not all the greenhouse effect, but more the soil and water supply...?

Kind regards, Paul.

Well, Paul, much of the Netherlands productive capacity came about because the growers were able to buy energy (mostly natural gas) at prices which meant the net cost of production was lower than anyone else in Europe could compete with.

PaulRyckier wrote:

for among others tomatoes...
http://www.worldstopexports.com/tomatoes-exports-country/
Mexico: 2.2 billion (24.1%) of world export
Netherlands: $2 billion (22%)
Spain: $1.1 billion (11.7%)
Morocco: $765.2 million (8.5%)
France: $381.5 million (4.3%)
Canada: $379.2 million (4.2%)
Belgium: $308.9 million (3.4%)
Turkey: $303.1 million (3.4%)
United States: $291.7 million (3.3%)
China: $200.2 million (2.2%)
Azerbaijan: $189.3 million (2.1%)
Italy: $131.8 million (1.5%)
Poland: $71.1 million (0.8%)
Portugal: $67.6 million (0.8%)
Belarus: $52.2 million (0.6%)

Belgium on 51 latitude and Portugal on 39.5 and both 10 million inhabitants: Belgium $ 308 million and Portugal $ 67.6 million. I agree it is perhaps not all the greenhouse effect, but more the soil and water supply...?.

Paul, I’m more surprised to see Italy so low down on the list. Italian tomatoes and particularly Italian tinned tomatoes are right up there with Jaffa oranges as iconic products to be found in British kitchens, store cupboards, pantries and larders. Despite the canning of peas, peaches and other fruits and vegetables in Italy beginning in the 1850s, the canning of tomatoes didn’t really start until the 1910s and didn’t take off until the 1920s. This coincided with the widespread adoption of the San Marzano cultivar by Italian growers that decade. Its firm flesh, few pips, full flavour, high sweetness, low acidity and even its plum shape made it ideal for canning.



(1950s advert for tinned peeled tomatoes)

Green George wrote:

Well, Paul, much of the Netherlands productive capacity came about because the growers were able to buy energy (mostly natural gas) at prices which meant the net cost of production was lower than anyone else in Europe could compete with.

 
Yes Gil but finally at a cost...and at the end because of the "trouble", no better the "trembling"...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-gas-idUSKCN1VV1KE
Kind regards, Paul.

Vizzer wrote:

Paul, I’m more surprised to see Italy so low down on the list. Italian tomatoes and particularly Italian tinned tomatoes are right up there with Jaffa oranges as iconic products to be found in British kitchens, store cupboards, pantries and larders. Despite the canning of peas, peaches and other fruits and vegetables in Italy beginning in the 1850s, the canning of tomatoes didn’t really start until the 1910s and didn’t take off until the 1920s. This coincided with the widespread adoption of the San Marzano cultivar by Italian growers that decade. Its firm flesh, few pips, full flavour, high sweetness, low acidity and even its plum shape made it ideal for canning.

 
Vizzer, I first thought that it was overhere, but it was on the Dutch greenhouse tomatoes in the "Greenhouse" thread that MM said:
" I've flown over the southern Netherlands at night and the enormous area of illuminated greenhouses is certainly a very impressive sight from above. A pity all the tomatoes produced have absolutely no taste at all.  "

Yes "taste" is important as I mentioned the reaction of the (main consument of the Dutch tomatoes) German market, which didn't like the Holland greenhouse taste...hence a reaction from the Dutch commercial agriculture institute...
And perhaps the Italians have lesser greenhouses and overthere it is also dark at night...it all as you mentioned before quite during the last decades that happened a lot and even changing of countries of production...

Kind regards, Paul.