Ethnobotany and Domesticated Plants

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Ethnobotany and Domesticated Plants
Wheat
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First ethnobotanical rule of food production

• In indigenous agriculture where the crops are
  consumed and not sold, there evolves and is
  maintained a reasonable level of nutritional
  adequacy

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Second ethnobotanical rule of food production

• In indigenous agriculture where the crops are
  grown mainly or only for sale, there develops an
  expanding surplus of food. The overall objective
  of such agricultural systems is to replace a
  pre-existing (natural) plant community with a
  cultivator-made community

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It then follows that

• If the potentially unstable increase in food
  production and human population is to be
  maintained, it must be consistent with three
  aims
• 1. To operate at a maximum profit (labor/yield).
• 2. To minimize year-to-year instability in
  production.
• 3. To operate so as to prevent long-term
  degradation of the production capacity of the
  agricultural system.

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Mexican Corn Varieties
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Darwin on Artificial Selection

• Although man did not cause variability and
  cannot even prevent it, he can select, preserve,
  and accumulate the variations given to him by the
  hand of nature almost in any way which he
  chooses and thus can certainly produce a great
  result Selection by man may be followed either
  methodically and intentionally, or unconsciously
  and unintentionally We can further understand
  how it is that domestic races of plants often
  exhibit an abnormal character, as compared to
  natural species, for they have been modified not
  for their own benefit, but for that of man.

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Street in Cuzco, Peru with advertisement for
California seeds
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Plant Germ Plasm

• The first category of germ plasm includes the
  native or indigenous varieties of cultivated crop
  plants used elsewhere in commercial agricultural
  production.
• At present many of the major crop plants have a
  limited genetic base, as these have been
  developed through a series of selections that
  emphasize yield often at the expense of insect or
  disease resistance, environmental tolerance,
  multiple use, etc.

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Spread of Southern Corn Leaf Blight
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Southern Corn Leaf Blight
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Close up of Southern Corn Leaf Blight
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Southern Corn Leaf Blight damage to ear
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Sweet Potato
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Healthy Sweet Potatoes Ipomoea batatas
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Sweet potatoes with black rot
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Sweet potatoes with soft rot
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Sweet potatoes with russet crack
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Sweet potato attacked by nematodes
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Sweet potato with stem rot Healthy sweet potato
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Plant Germ Plasm

• The second category of germ plasm material
  includes the identification and collection of
  wild relatives of the more commonly cultivated
  plants.

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Wild Tomato Species
Domestic High Altitude Another S.
sisymbrifolium
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Plant Germ Plasm

• The third category includes plants not yet in the
  economic system and not related to domesticated
  plants. These may have properties of great value
  to us, but these can be very difficult to
  identify.

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Seed and germplasm storage facility Kew Seed
Bank
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Breadfruit
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Diane Ragone Checking BreadfruitCollection in
Hawaii
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Ethnobotanical Methods
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William Withering and foxglove as a modern
medicine
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Basic Working Method in Ethnobotany

• Folk knowledge of a plants possible benefit to
  humans accumulates.
• Indigenous people use that plant to benefit
  themselves
• The folk knowledge is then related to a scientist
  
• The scientist collects and identifies the plant
• The scientist tests the plant to determine if it
  really is beneficial to humans. The form of the
  scientific test can vary significantly depending
  upon the potential use of the plant whether as
  food, fiber, a dye, medicine, etc.
• The scientist will attempt to determine what
  exactly makes the plant beneficial - what
  substance or aspect of the plant is beneficial.
• The scientist determines the structure of the
  pure substance

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Rhubarb Rheum x. cultorum Edible stems, deadly
toxic leaves
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Study of the on-going process of domestication

• 1. Informant interviews especially about
  desired traits, planting methods, methods of
  selection for breeding or seed stock.
• 2. Participation observation
• 3. Collection of native texts
• 4. Field observations grain, fruit, or
  vegetable measurements altitude, temperature,
  varietal flowering and maturation rates mapping
  locations and distances to fields from farm or
  village soil and vegetative analysis of sample
  fields at various stages of crop-fallow cycle.

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Phytoanthropology

• Phytoanthropology examines the extent of
  similarities and differences in the responses of
  various human communities to their plant
  neighbors, and the reasons for these human
  responses.

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Bo Tree Ficus religiosa
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Silk Cotton Tree Bombax ceiba
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Arrowhead Sagittaria sagittifolia