The Scholars / Episode 4

Michel, 57 years old, PROFESSOR LUCERNE
More often found in vegetable gardens and kitchens than lecture theatres, a Professor Lucerne is a type of versatile teacher.
They teach how to tend to a vegetable garden and cook but also botanical theory, physics and biology.
They transmit the know-how gleaned from many hours spent in their vegetable garden.
They teach school children to sew, grow and harvest fruits, pods and seeds, bud, cook, preserve, compost and observe wildlife, whether visible or micro-biological.
In high schools, they discuss the historical and geopolitical aspects of food and study international agronomic practices.

Claudine, 55 years old, PLANT DOCTOR
My plant is ill! Yes, but what is it suffering from?
The plant doctor is there to guide us when we aren’t able to make the suitable choices for our plants. A cryptogamic or fungal disease? Mildew, powdery mildew, grey rot or even sooty mould, a black mould caused by the Fumago Salicina fungi. Help! Plant doctor, show me the way to make this sad looking vegetable garden bloom again. Thank you and all these ingenious plant recipes, liquid comfrey or fern manure, garlic or horsetail mashing, etc.

Laurent, 40 years old, USEFUL INSECT BREEDER
In their farms of invertebrates, useful insect breeders produce an impressive amount of creepy crawlies.
Whether lacewing flies or pemphredons, beetles or ladybirds, all these ruthless predators of plant lice lead a happy life at a market gardeners!
The same is true for bumble bees, exemplary crop pollinators.
And the breeders know it: their progenies, much more efficient than pesticides and unquestionably risk-free, are much sought after.