A lot has happened in the past two months. In midst of a national South African lockdown and the world’s airports closing due to the current health crisis, I moved out of South Africa and made it to Sweden after a 3 day journey to start my new post doc position at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp. It’s fair to say, I managed this significant mission only thanks to the huge support I had from many people and thanks to the excellent repatriation efforts of the German ambassador in South Africa. Luck was on my side, as I remained healthy during this whole expedition…and 14 days after. But my adventure does not end there. I have come to Sweden to work on the breeding system of the woodland wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca). It’s a huge common garden experiment with genotypes sampled throughout its European distribution. My arrival to Alnarp, was met with the first plants flowering. This meant that there was little time to settle in, and I immediately delved into field work. During this period, I’ve had the pleasure to discover the differences in reproductive traits across all these genotypes. Like most field work is, it’s been an intense time gathering lots of data. I am happy to report that I’ve already started to harvest the first strawberries! Besides the striking fragrance of the berries, the obvious perk of working with strawberries is the possibility of snacking these sweet treats during field work. I had never tried the wild strawberry before, and they surprisingly taste like the ‘artificial’ strawberry flavoring in candies, sodas, ice cream etc. Turns out that the ‘artificial’ is actually inspired in the ‘natural-wild’ strawberry flavor. Note below…I’m not the only one snacking on the berries ;)
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Check out my recent fun, in the link above, looking at the pollination biology of Nerine laticoma - a stunning plant, a massive population and an inspiring site to work in.
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