If you were intrigued by news of a BBC series on the history of botany, but could not see it because you don’t live in the UK, fear not, Jeremy has snipped out the bit about Vavilov that appeared in the third programme, which was all about crop breeding.
A call for information on threatened Italian vineyards
I suppose there’s some poetic meaning to the coincidence that it is while I’m travelling in the oldest wine-producing region of the world that I notice on Facebook a call from Slow Food Italia for information on vineyards threatened with destruction. Be that as it may, it will be interesting to see what response Slow Food get, and what use they make of it. We have blogged here on various occasions about the desirability of an early warning system for genetic erosion, and how one might go about setting one up. This might have the makings of one, at least for grapevine in Italy.
Nibbles: IRRI genebank, Andeans, Satoyama, Forestry fellowship
- IRRI explains its rice genebank. Is this new? Why are so many pages on the internets undated?
- Owen takes his Andean roots and tubers to another county. NatGeo not interested.
- FAO recognizes two Satoyama sites as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, making eight in total.
- Sub-Saharan Foresty Funding from the 2011 Abdou-Salam Ouédraogo fellowship.
Nibbles: Pullman, Global Plant Conservation, Germination
- The USDA’s Pullman genebank gets a nice write-up.
- Live from The Missouri Botanical Garden and The Global Partnership for Plant Conservation conference. Crop wild relatives mentioned…
- Hints of a role for growth regulators in germination of recalcitrant seeds.
An online home for sweet potato information
There’s a new online Sweetpotato Knowledge Portal. Lots of stuff on germaplasm conservation, breeding, seed systems, value addition etc. It really does look quite interesting, but, frustratingly, I have no idea who’s behind it. Institutionally, that is. There’s not a logo in sight anywhere. Seems to be driven by sweetpotato researchers themselves, many, but by no means all, at CIP. I shall be watching it closely, via its RSS feed.
