We woke up at 8 am this morning in the city of Pergamino, Argentina. The morning was particularly cool and overcast. The temperature was in the low 60s fahrenheit, and the cloud cover and humidity kept the grass beneath our feet wet well into the day. The pleasant temperature and clouds would not last, giving way to sweltering heat and sunshine by the day's end in Buenos Aires.
The first stop on this day was a seed company in the outskirts of the city. Pergamino is the capital of seed production in Argentina with nearly eighty percent of all Argentinian seed produced near the city. This is mostly due to the favorable soils found here. They are among the best in the country. The company we visited is called GAPP which stands for Genetic Applied Production Pastures. The company is thirteen years old and based in Pergamino. They specialize in producing seed for forage and grazing crops, most notably alfalfa, ryegrass and sorghum.
We began the tour in one of the company's test plots. In addition to the plot we saw here, they also have one near Salta, a small city in one of the northernmost regions of the country for testing plants more fit for the cattle producers of the tropical and subtropical environments found there. The test site in Pergamino, however, dealt more with temperate plants more well suited to the central region. One of the most important of these plants is alfalfa. The alfalfa used in Argentina comes from one of three main sources, Australia, The United States, and Argentina itself. We were shown two plots planted in 2011 and 2009, respectively. Our tour guide Mariano pointed out each variety, commenting on its country of origin and performance. In nearly every trial, the American varieties outperformed the Australian and Argentinian ones in uniformity, nutrition, and overall yield. Much of this was attributed to the fact that the American genetics did a better job controlling root disease and insects, leading to better alfalfa stands.
Mariano also pointed out the company's tests on continental and mediterranean fescue. Unlike alfalfa which grows continually, fescues go dormant at certain times of the year, continental varieties in the winter months (June, July and August) and mediterranean varieties in the summer (December, January and February).
Furthermore, since machinery specifically designed for planting or seeding pastures is not available in Argentina, trials are being held to find the best methods to adapt existing equipment to the task. Thus far they have had the best results from planting twice in a criss-crossing grid, rather than twice in parallel rows.
Afterwards we toured their seed handling facilities where seeds are cleaned, sorted, packaged, stored and distributed all across southern South America. While there, we were treated to coffee and croissants in traditional Argentine hospitality.
Continuing onward, we left Pergamino and ventured eastward toward the city of Buenos Aires. The city is massive. It is the largest in Argentina and one of the largest on the continent. For a bunch of farm kids from the upper Midwest, it is somewhat overwhelming. Our hotel is located deep in the center of the city, not far from the Obelisk and the Argentine version of the White House, which is pink. It is on the widest street I have ever seen, a twelve-lane boulevard with service roads on either side and stretches of park in between. The buildings that flank the boulevard are at least a few hundred yards apart.
In the evening, we attended a tango show at a restaurant-theater not far from the hotel. For those that don't know, tango is a style of dance that originates from Argentina. The simplest way to describe it is a fluid and sporadic, if not systematic, embrace that plays out across the dance floor (or in this case stage) to down-right melancholy music played by a combination of a piano, string bass, accordion and violin. We were first served a meal in what is probably the classiest, most sophisticated restaurant of the whole trip thus far. Afterwards, the show presented a brief history of the dance; rising from the slums and working-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, being accepted by Argentinian society, and finally becoming part of Argentina's portion of our collective world heritage. Argentinian's are proud of tango in a way that we as Americans simply don't feel towards any particular style of dance. For them it is a part of their national identity, and I'm here to say that as a nation, they could do worse.
Daniel Gering
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