Carqueja and macela are two herbs widely consumed in the country. Both are collected directly from nature, wherever their plants spread across the land. Carqueja is appreciated for its medicinal purposes, being widely consumed in the form of teas or infusions. Macela, in turn, is also consumed medicinal, as well as uses as decoration for environments and upholstery for cushions and pillows. Both can be easily found on the shelves of Brazilian supermarkets, in many cases, sold by large industries.
Despite this, carqueja and macela are not cultivated for commercial purposes, for a very simple reason: to date, there are no suitable seeds for this. All carqueja and macela herbs available on the market come from collections carried out in nature, without any control or regulation of their supply. And this has put the preservation of its species at risk, Baccharis trimera and Achyrocline satureioidesrespectively.
Wouldn't the natural solution be to collect seeds from nature and grow them for consumption? The researcher Ilio Montanari Junior, from the Multidisciplinary Center for Chemical, Biological and Agricultural Research (CPQBA) at Unicamp, explains why this would not work.
"The agricultural process requires genetic homogeneity of seeds. When they are collected in nature, they present great genetic variability, and the plants originating from these seeds will be very heterogeneous, with different cycles, size, architecture, resistance to pests and diseases, chemical composition, etc., which can make production unfeasible”, justifies Montanari.
"Furthermore”, continues the researcher, “seeds collected in nature present what we call dormancy, a characteristic of seeds that germinate unpredictably, each at its own time. For agriculture, it is best to work with seeds that germinate quickly and all at once, in a uniform manner. The cultivar selection work includes reducing dormancy to only work with seeds with rapid germination capacity, which increases the efficiency of the agricultural process.”
Cultivar improvement research took around 15 years
For all these reasons, the researcher began the first research to select carqueja and macela seeds. Since then, the two herbs were widely consumed in the country, and their medicinal properties were well known, integrating the Brazilian pharmacopoeia.
"Seed improvement research took around 15 years. They were at least ten generations of herb selection and improvement, which resulted in seeds ready for planting commercial”, details Montanari.
From these selected seed samples, herbs not only become viable for commercial cultivation, but their species can be better protected, as they have the potential to eliminate unrestrained extractive collection. According to Montanari, “with selected seeds, it is possible to include the plant in a production chain. You have controlled supply and demand, and this eliminates the risk of disorderly collection, which threatens the preservation of its species. With the seeds selected, carqueja and macela can be inserted into the commercial process, both in the food chain, pharmaceutical and cosmetics. With the results of this research, we can say that we managed to 'domesticate' these plants, bringing them closer to the 'domus', the house.”
According to Montanari, these cultivars are the first Brazilian medicinal plants. He concludes: “We hope that this work points the way for other species of our biodiversity to be inserted into production chains, in a sustainable way, providing quality raw materials, in predictable quantities. And, thus, transformed into a finished product, they can reach the population.”
Seeds can reach the market until 2024
A intellectual property protection and the licensing of Montanari's research was supported by the Innovation Agency Inova Unicamp, and a commercial partner has already been found to offer the carqueja and macela seeds on the market: the company from Rio Grande do Sul Isla Sementes, which has already received the first samples to be cultivated. Engineer Diana Werner, president of Isla, comments on this approach:
"About six years ago, I visited Unicamp and discovered Ilio Montanari's work. His improvement of carqueja and macela seeds impressed us and met two of our concerns: first, providing microproducers with access to two new quality products, which could be incorporated into their productive areas; Furthermore, for us it is always important to offer micro-producers a greater diversity of crops, allowing them to have access to new options for their activities. It was a matter of time and resolving the procedures for us to start cultivating these new seeds”, remembers Werner.
The engineer also explains that the seeds have already been cultivated at Isla's facilities and are currently in the propagation phase to gain commercial scale. “As soon as this is completed, the carqueja and macela seeds will begin to be sold. We hope this will happen by the end of 2024”, estimates Werner.
Read the full article published on the Inova Unicamp website.
