Fungal invader bites Spanish ham Spain's ham producers are eyeing with alarm the spread of a fungus which is threatening the food supply essential to the production of the country's famous leg of pig. The culprit is Phytophthora1, which attacks the roots of the evergreen encina, (Holm Oak, Quercus ilex)2, whose acorns provide the diet for the indigenous black …
export larger trees from "infested" UK fields to give the Spanish a leg up on reestablishing native groves.
Although this might not preserve the pig at present levels in the near term, it would speed the recovery of this industry. Hopefully their agrigulture boffins are working on finding resistant rootstocks for grafting, etc.
This is pretty urgent, the obscenely wealthy are faced with starvation.
It is another bumper year s for acorns in the Potomac valley. I dare say any Spanish farmer who cares to fly into Dulles with a rake could pack home his fill of emergency supplies. That said, I don't know how our acorns compare to theirs--perhaps the Iberian gourmands would experience a sudden craving for sweet-potato pie.
We could do an interesting taste study based on hammys who were fed acorns from other particular species, such as live oak or what not.
Hey, we've got an abundance of live oaks in Florida, they're not really useful for anything but half-way decent firewood...
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