Semillas Abiertas
El 28 de octubre, Elba y David realizaron el trasplante de tomates en la parcela de Bioleft ubicada en la UNSAM, dando inicio a una nueva campaña de evaluación participativa. Este año, el ensayo incluye tres variedades: NoMeOlvides, Carcione (variedad platense) y #113 (variedad cherry). Los plantines fueron sembrados y cuidados por Elba en su vivero hasta alcanzar el momento óptimo para su trasplante.
Read more
The second visit to Julia Ríos’s Farm of the Minka Cooperative in Florencio Varela focused on the evaluation of the state of the crops and the infrastructure, seeking to ensure an optimal open seed campaign.
Read more
Bioleft launched the 2025/2026 tomato campaign with a virtual workshop that brought together evaluators from more than 25 locations across the country. The proposal, based on open science and citizen science, reinforces collaborative recording and the circulation of knowledge to make better decisions on seed selection and multiplication.
Read more
On August 26th, the Bioleft outreach team visited Julia Ríos, tomato evaluator and seed producer at Minka-Semillera (Florencio Varela) to share an assessment of the previous season and plan for the 2024-2025 season. The meeting took place in an atmosphere of trust and closeness, at her own home, where they discussed achievements, difficulties, and next steps.
Read more
As part of the International Colloquium on Perspectives on Ecology in Latin America (see more), Bioleft participated in the roundtable discussion “Towards shared sustainability: lessons learned from collaborative experiences in Latin America,” reflecting on the challenges and lessons learned around the exchange and improvement of open seeds in Argentina.
Read more
At Bioleft, we continue to generate practical resources to contribute to food sovereignty. On this occasion, we are sharing a tutorial on how to preserve tomato seeds, and other crops such as peppers, zucchini, and pumpkins in a simple and effective way.
Read more
This past April, we held the closing workshop for the 2024–2025 campaign of the collaborative evaluation project of Creole tomatoes. Once again, we came together from different regions and experiences to celebrate a collective process that continues to grow, driven by the commitment of gardeners, agroecological producers, researchers, students, and defenders of open-pollinated seeds.
Read more
Have you noticed that some tomatoes have a top part that looks underripe? Those "green shoulders" are actually the key to their flavor.
Read more
On Thursday, January 16, we visited Julia’s farm in Florencio Varela. Julia is part of the Minka cooperative for agroecological seed production.
As part of the Citizen Science project, Julia grows and evaluates different heirloom tomato varieties — three linked to the “Rescuing the Heirloom Tomato” project (Aimé, La Piqui, and No Me Olvides) and four others from the same collection but harvested in 2023 (Perita No. 18, Perita No. 20, Perita No. 67, and Perita Ronita).
In addition, she conserves and cultivates more than 10 of her own tomato varieties, which she has collected and preserved over the years
On Tuesday, December 17, a new workday took place at the UNSAM Community Garden, featuring significant improvements and various maintenance activities. The day included the presence of Angelly Sánchez and Sabrina Rendon, members of the “Rescuing the Creole Tomato” team from the Faculty of Agronomy at the University of Buenos Aires (FAUBA).
Read more