Month: January 2011

January 29, 2011January 28, 2011

Agrobiodiversity conservation going mainstream?

I don’t know about you, but I’m surprised when, on the same day mind you, the Costa Rica News has a piece about a new citrus genebank at CATIE and Balkans.com an article about the genetic relationship between Turkish and Hungarian apricot cultivars. Pleasantly surprised.

January 28, 2011January 28, 2011

Livestock genetic resources meetings galore

The livestock genetic resources conservation people are going to be hard at it both in Europe and India this year. Must be something in the air.

January 27, 2011January 27, 2011

Nibbles: Indigenous Peoples, Bananas, Ants

Got something to say to the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples? Call for Sessions.
“[B]anana variety diversity contributes positively to reducing yield losses caused by biophysical constraints.” IFPRI paper, so you know you can believe it.
Weaver ants drafted to protect African fruit and nut crops. Again.

January 27, 2011

Colombian agrobiodiversity on display

Colombian Fruit Odyssey

Originally uploaded by KitchenCaravan

January 26, 2011January 26, 2011

Aeroponic potato seeds in Kenya

A fascinating article on the Voice of America website tells us that Kenyan scientists, with colleagues at the International Potato Center (CIP), have developed a technique for growing potatoes plants in air (with water and nutrients) and then distributing the resulting plants to farmers, who report yield increases of 4 to 5 times. ¹ The article dates back to June 2010, but CIP just shared it with its Facebook friends, and that gives me the chance to say I don’t fully understand:

Seeds are germinated in the laboratory. The seedlings are then fixed into holes cut out of Styrofoam sheets. And then after the seeds are developed further, they are harvested and distributed to farmers.

Talk about “seeds” and “germination” makes me think they’re talking about true potato seed, which has been the next big thing in potatoes for as long as I can remember. But if that were true, I would have expected the article to make more of it. And what will it do for potato diversity in Kenya? I have no idea what the market-leading cultivars are or the extent of concentration; how many varieties will the researchers make available?