The Turnip (<i>Brassica rapa</i> L. subsp. <i>rapa</i>) in Eastern Tyrol (Lienz district; Austria)

Abstract

The turnip (Brassica rapa L. ssp. rapa), has been a very important crop in the Alps for centuries. It's main uses were food and fodder. The fermented turnips (Ruebenkraut) used to be, as was sauerkraut, a very important winter foodstuff. The importance of turnips in Alpine countries is shown by the fact that they were even shown on the coat of arms belonging to noble families. Today, however, only a few remaining farmers still grow and process turnips. These farmers were approached in 1997/98 within an ethnobotanical inventory and 2003/04 with semistructured interviews covering agronomy, processing and trade, as well as the cultural context of the turnip. One farmer was chosen for in-depth interviews and participant observation during the cultivation and processing of turnips. The results show that the few remaining farmers still hold the full knowledge necessary to successfully produce fermented turnip, including soil management, sowing, crop management, harvest, storage, processing and the propagation of seeds. In the families, where production of lactic acid fermented turnips is economically important, this knowledge is still passed on to younger members of the family. The survival of the cultivation of turnip by a few farmers is closely related to the high local appreciation of the specific taste for fermented turnips whereas the various uses and different stories belonging to the cultural context of the turnip are in danger of disappearing from the region. IntroductionThe globalization of the economy, the worldwide free trade of agricultural commodities and changes in consumer behaviour have caused changes in patterns of agricultural production, processing, use and consumption of locally cultivated plant species, of varieties and of its cultural and social context. As a consequence many locally grown cultivated plant species that have been very well known for centuries, their cultivars and the related local knowledge are in danger of disappearing or have already disappeared. One of these cultivated plant species, whose cultivation is decreasing constantly, is Brassica rapa L. subsp. rapa (henceforth called in this paper turnip).In this paper we will present the history of this species in Central Europe and the results of our field research on local knowledge and local use-patterns on turnips in Eastern Tyrol (Lienz district; Austria). The paper aims to document farmers' local knowledge, knowledge that has survived only at a few farms, to draw the attention of the scientific community to this species and argue for further research, for in-situ and for ex-situ conservation of the germplasm and the related knowledge. HistoryThe domestication of the turnip has very ancient origins. The word laptu in ancient Assyrian dates back to 1800 B.C. (Oppenheim et al. 1973). The turnip is a very well known vegetable in the entire Middle East (Arab: lift, PerThe Turnip (Brassica rapa L. subsp. rapa) in Eastern

Genetic Diversity and Primary Core Collection Construction of Turnip (Brassica rapa L. ssp. rapifera Matzg) Landraces in Tibet Revealed via Morphological and SSR Markers

“…Unlike most landraces from Tibet with large bulk tubers (Figure S1), turnips from Japan all have ascending rosettes, smaller taproots, and narrow leaves, and turnips from Europe all have long, slender tubers and deep leaf fissures [51]. Previous studies have reported that the thickened part of turnips consists of both a hypocotyl and a root, and this group was one of the oldest groups of cultivated B. rapa [22,52,53]. Europe and Asia are two different independent origin centers of cultivated B. rapa subspecies [2].…”

The changing face of farmers’ home gardens: a diachronic analysis from Sillian (Eastern Tyrol, Austria)

“…for cereal cultivation, field vegetables, fibre crops, etc. and the farming of a wide range of domesticated animals, with a low number of individuals per species, were the main components of the subsistence system until the 1960s [ 13 , 17 , 34 ]. Large parts of today’s meadowlands used to be tilled up to an altitude of 1700 m. Farming systems in Eastern Tyrol have undergone change in the past few decades.…”

Morphology, Carbohydrate Composition and Vernalization Response in a Genetically Diverse Collection of Asian and European Turnips (Brassica rapa subsp. rapa)

“…Understanding which part of a turnip plant develops into a tuber during the vegetative development is a key for future research investigating this phenomenon. Previous studies often stated that the turnip tuber is a taproot [28] , [35] , [36] , [37] , while a few studies mentioned that the thickened part of turnip consists of both hypocotyl and root [38] , [39] . Our anatomical observations of six genetically diverse turnip accessions showed that turnip tubers are a combination of hypocotyl and root; both organs take part in forming the fleshy organ through secondary growth by a vascular cambium, while the proportion of hypocotyl/root differs among different accessions ( Figure 1 ) and seems to be independent from the geographic origin of the turnip accession.…”