Perspectives for Organic Cultivation and Commercialization of Bertalha (Basella alba L.) at the Metropolitan Region and Metropolitan Collar of Belo Horizonte / MG
Bertalha, organic farming, seeds.
Brazilian family agriculture, as well as urban agriculture, is characterized by owning, or even cultivating in small properties, using mostly family members labor force. This research pretends to systematize plant breeding information for the organic farming system of bertalha (Basella alba L.) in order to subsidize the expansion of the species plantations, since the bertalha is being demanded in high gastronomy, as well as in gourmet supermarkets, being its production inexpressive to meet this demand. The study proposes to demonstrate the viability of expansion of bertalha’s farming, such as in relation with edaphoclimatics questions, such as in function of the market’s demand. The methodology of the research will consist in bibliographic review about ways of farming the specie, following of visitation / interview of the productive units of the familiar and urban farmers, at the Metropolitan Region and Metropolitan Collar of Belo Horizonte / MG, who cultivate and commercialize the bertalha in order to systematize information obtained through the interviews. In addition to this phytotechnical and edaphoclimatic information, the seed lots of the species, obtained from the family and urban farmers productive units, will be analyzed. The characterization of the form of farming of family and urban farmers was made by showing their dynamics of production and growing commercialization, being the vegetable highly demanded by the high gastronomy in renowned restaurants, at the direct sell in fairs of organic products, in ordered baskets or even found in the gondolas of gourmet supermarkets, which demonstrate the great prospect of growth of their consumption in natura. As for subsequent plantings, it was observed that farmers use their own seeds, or even purchase from community seed banks and that at rare times they use plantation forms made with plant cuttings. The analysis of donated seeds obtained from fruits pulped or pulped with respect to the weight of one thousand seeds, humidity degree, vigor, percentage of germination and seedling length, and analysis of treatments with 1%sodium hypochlorite, with different times of 1 and 5 minutes. It was made the analysis of donated seeds, obtained from pulped fruits or kept with pulp, as the weight of a thousand seeds, humidity degree, vigor, percentage of germination and seedling length, in addition of the analysis of treatments with 1% sodium hypochlorite, with different times of 1 and 5 minutes. The bertalha has showed to be a promising culture for family and urban farmers, considering the edaphoclimatic conditions of the studied region, mainly in summer time, a period of off-season of the hardwood vegetables. Even without harvest and storage criteria, there is a certain efficiency in the conservation of the physiological quality of seeds donated by farmers. The seeds obtained from pulped fruits presented better performance in relation to the germination test and seedling length. In this study, it was raised the largest possible number of information related to production, commercialization and bertalha seeds.