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Don’t miss this month’s issue of the GARDENIA monthly magazine  we are featured! Thanks to the article by Samantha Gaiara. Radicchio What it is: Cichorium intybus var. foliosum, family Asteraceae.Origin: Mediterranean Basin, Italy.Characteristics: A biennial herbaceous plant, cultivated as an annual, with variegated leaves or in various shades of red, yellow, or pink; leaves can be long and narrow with an upright habit or rounded and overlapping, forming round heads. In the second year, flowering stalks appear, with intense blue corollas.Growing cycle: From 55 to 150 days, depending on the type and variety. Easy to grow, radicchio is the king...

Radicchio – An Italian Conquers Austria In the spring of 2024, the Experimental Station for Special Crops in Wies, on the initiative of Andrea Pölz (Chamber of Agriculture of Lower Austria) together with the Italian radicchio breeder Andrea Ghedina (Smarties.bio), organized a technical seminar dedicated to radicchio.  It was therefore an opportunity to closely examine a total of 21 varieties. This Italian specialty was mentioned for the first time in the 16th century. It is assumed that the varieties o that time had a much lower percentage of red leaves compared to those cultivated today. It is a fact that...

Typically grown from summer for autumn-winter harvests, numerous types are available on the market, differing in shape, head color, and cultivation cycle length.   The vegetables known as radicchio are cultivated forms of wild chicory (Cichorium intybus), in some cases crossed with a similar plant, endive (Cichorium endivia), also called escarole, which has been native to and cultivated for millennia, especially in the Mediterranean basin. The various species of the genus Cichorium are inter-fertile, meaning they can cross-pollinate and produce fertile seeds. It is largely thanks to this characteristic that the richness of radicchio types exists today. Radicchio is a...

Hello friends of the Smarties.bio World! History teaches that the flavor and healthiness of foods are linked to the differences in the food traditions of various areas of the world. When Europeans colonized the New World in the 15th century, they discovered plant species that were then unknown, but which today are part of our traditional cuisine: the potato, the tomato, the chili pepper and many others. It was the beginning of a first form of food globalization and a slow culinary hybridization. The introduction of some vegetables into foreign food cultures encountered difficulties in becoming slowly integrated. Without having...