Caribbean Landraces: are they gone?

Are there any Caribbean land races available? Surely there must be more than just Jamaican… Haiti apparently had a landrace, I would think the Dominican Republic should have something, certainly Cuba… what about Puerto Rico? Virgin Islands? In all my looking for landraces I have never found anything pure from the Caribbean. There must be something left

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Bah humbug & all that. I don’t think any qualify really(?)… with Africa itself being the “youngest”(?)

Jamaica will be Indian & African & anything inbetween. :thinking:

:evergreen_tree:

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Perhaps we should call them old heirlooms then? Yes they would be Indian and African genetics originally, same age as Colombian, Panama etc

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Sure there are. Hit up my buddy @farmguysgarden on IG he has a reproduction of Bodhi’s Aruba.

Granted, almost nothing is “pure” as you might be thinking of it. Quicker better yielding lines have been worked into almost all local populations, and tourism is king in the Caribbean, not exactly a remote village. Lots of seeds going in and out for a very long time. Nothing is “gone” it just got mixed.

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good tip vernal, I am about to start a pack of bodhi’s jamaica x aruba and it could be a lot of fun to have the pure aruba running with it.

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Thanks Vernal. There has to be some old timers that kept this stuff pure. Its just a matter of finding it. But you are right. Dollar is King and many old varieties don’t yield like the new ones. At first they take a back seat, and eventually are forgotten about or the seeds go bad. I remember reading about that Aruba variety. Related to Colombian if I recall correctly. Know anyone that tried it?

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