Spain: UAL launches project to valorize carob trees and combat climate change

The carob tree is “an alternative and/or complementary annual crop suitable for areas particularly affected by desertification and water stress, such as Almería”. In fact, it has been cultivated “in arid and semi-arid regions of Spain, Portugal and other countries in the Mediterranean basin since the time of the Phoenicians, being a tree intimately rooted in the history and culture of many rural areas” of our country. However, “perhaps because it is associated with times of scarcity, hunger and misery”, the truth is that it has been “traditionally vilified, underused and poorly studied”. That could change thanks to a project entitled ‘The agricultural model of Almería in the face of global change. Proposals from the genomics of agrobiodiversity (OrphanEvolGen)’. This project has just been launched by a team of researchers led by Lorenzo Carretero Paulet, professor of Genomics at the UAL, with the conviction that “the cultivation of carob trees, or garrofero, could help mitigate ...