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Farming Today: Pears, Gooseberries and the Future Foresters

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06/07/2016

Pears, Gooseberries and the Future Foresters

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Pears, Gooseberries and the Future Foresters

Pear ripening compound, Gooseberries and the Future Forestry workers.

A compound that could make pears as popular as their sister fruit the apple, the popularity of the gooseberry and a project to encourage young people into forestry.

New research by scientists at Washington State University in the U.S. has discovered ripening compounds that could bring an end to the crunchy unripe pear which suddenly goes bad, without becoming ripe at all. Apples can be treated with a substance called SmartFresh which enables them to be stored for long periods - but pears don't react in the same way when they are treated - they just stay unripe. Now, genomics scientists have developed a new compound that helps pears to ripen after they've been treated with SmartFresh. 

The Royal Forestry society is an educational charity that's been urging landowners to manage woodland wisely since the 1880s. But the Society's currently concerned that too few young people are becoming foresters leading to a skills gap in an industry they claim is worth nearly two billion pounds to the UK economy. To try and help plug that gap their Future Foresters Project is offering paid hands-on experience to get student foresters employment ready. 

The gooseberry is one of the first fruits to be cultivated commercially in this country and in their heyday hundreds of different varieties were found in the UK. However in 1905 the accidental introduction of a mildew disease from America wiped out many of our British specialities. The gooseberry bounced back when it was crossed with mildew-resistant American plants, but popularity for the fruit has declined, and gooseberry pies and fools are no longer on many people's dessert menus.

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