wild rural fruit trees vs. urban foraging fruit trees
'Roadside Fruit Trees' focuses on wild, self-sown trees in rural regions, as distinct from cultivated trees in urban and suburban areas. There are several differences.
Wild, rural trees are self-sown seedlings, different from the parent trees, locally adapted, each with a unique set of characteristics that makes that particular tree able to survive local conditions such as drought, flood, insect pests and diseases.
Rural wildlings have a wider range of genetic characteristics than their cultivated counterparts; characteristics which can include disease-resistant, pest-resistant and drought tolerance, which means their DNA is valuable to the survival of Australia's future food crops. |
Urban/suburban fruit trees, on the other hand, have usually been deliberately planted and cultivated by gardeners, and are generally of a known, widely-available variety, originally purchased from a commercial plant nursery.
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Wild rural fruit trees are endangered by the policies of local councils, may of whom actively seek them out and destroy them as 'weeds'.
This means that rural roadside trees should never be publicly mapped, for their own protection. |
By contrast, urban/suburban fruit trees are generally accepted by local councils as belonging to parks and gardens.
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Urban Food Foraging Groups
There are many worthy groups concentrating on mapping and harvesting urban fruit trees. Links below.
There are many worthy groups concentrating on mapping and harvesting urban fruit trees. Links below.