Month: December 2011

December 4, 2011December 4, 2011

Grass pea and food security

I’m taking the liberty of elevating a question form our friend Dirk Enneking to a full post, because I suspect more peple see posts than comments. Can you help Dirk?

Does any of our learned friends from India, Nepal and Ethiopia who have posted here, have a current perspective on the role that grass pea (guaya, khesari) (Lathyrus sativus) plays in contributing to food security in their part of the world?

December 3, 2011December 3, 2011

Nibbles: Statuary, Confusion, Unheard from, Kava

A statue of Norman Borlaug. Artists invited to submit ideas.
A diversity of Junior Ministers of Agriculture in Italy.
Feeling left out of the EU’s survey on the state of its biodiversity work? Join Patrick and make your voice heard. But not necessarily listened too.
Fiji cracks down on yaqona, which we know as kava. Say it isn’t so!

December 3, 2011December 3, 2011

Featured: Nitrogen

Ford kindly points out that, in fixing atmospheric nitrogen, as in so much else, the devil is in the details.

High %N can be good, if you want fast release, but did you notice that 220880 produced less than 1/3 the biomass of 206492? If that’s what actually happens in the field, total N contribution would be much greater for 206492. (Similarly, high % protein isn’t enough, by itself, to convince me that some new crop species is worth developing. How much protein does it produce per hectare?)

Maybe Luigi will share his finder’s fee?

December 2, 2011December 2, 2011

Nibbles: Plant conservation, AnGR training materials, ICTs in agriculture, CWR and GIS

Don’t understand the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation? Fear not, help is at hand.
Don’t understand livestock genetics? Fear not, help is at hand.
Don’t understand how ICTs could assist agricultural development? Fear not, help is at hand.
Don’t understand how climate change affects vegetable genetic resources. Fear not, do this postdoc at Wageningen and you will.

December 1, 2011November 30, 2011

Ornamental banana pix

You may remember a little Brainfood item about the Brazilian collection of ornamental bananas. Ok, now thanks to ProMusa you can see some of these cool plants.