It can take the heat

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If you've ever tried to raise herbs in the Deep South or on the Pacific Coast, you already know that the traditional culinary herbs native to northern and central Europe wilt in the hot summers, high humidity, and mild winters. Although some heat-tolerant substitutes exist--Mexican mint marigold (Tagetes lucida), for example, stands in for French tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus ‘Sativa’)--garden sage (Salvia officinalis) has always been a drooping failure in hot climates. None of the more heat-­tolerant sages have come close to ­offering the same flavor.

A few years ago, scientists at the Agricultural Research Organization Newe Ya'ar in Israel set out to develop a sage hardy enough to raise commercially in Israel's hot, dry ­climate. They gathered garden sage clones from Israel and from Europe's Dalmatian coast (the former Yugoslavia and Albania), the source of the highest-quality commercial dried sage imported into North America. The latter includes S. officinalis gathered from the wild, three-lobed sage (S. fruticosa, ­formerly S. triloba), and hybrids between those two species. After several years of ­selection, the Israeli scientists found that a clone of S. fruticosa (number 25/16) from Mount Carmel in Israel produced ­extremely high yields of fresh and dry leaves and ­essential oil; however, the quality of the oil was disappointing.

The essential oil of the most flavorful ­garden sages from the Dalmatian coast contains relatively high levels of alpha- and beta-thujones, which have an odor of tansy, and low levels of camphor and 1,8-cineole, which smells of eucalyptus. By contrast, the oil of clone 25/16 was high in 1,8-cineole and pine-smelling alpha- and beta-pinenes and low in in alpha- and beta-thujones, producing an unsagelike odor of eucalyptus-pine.

To try to introduce the desirable higher levels of alpha- and beta-thujones into the hardy but bad-tasting Mount Carmel sage, clones of S. officinalis chosen for their chemical composition and heat tolerance were crossed with clone 25/16. The offspring were grown under harsh field conditions for two years; about 70 percent died, but the fresh yield and oil of the survivors were evaluated. After further selection, clone number 4 was deemed to have acceptable levels of the right chemical constituents. It was given the formal cultivar name ‘Newe Ya'ar’ (pronounced Neh-veh Ya-ar) after the ­Israeli research station where the research was ­carried out and introduced to the international fresh market.

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