Nibbles: Sunflower breeding, Indian cows, New varieties and income, Climate change and extinction, Honeybee threat, Figs, Apple history, DIY Luffa, IRRI DDG blog

The Russian sunflowers are coming! The Russian sunflowers are coming!
Holy cow! Can’t do better than The Hindu’s headline. And more.
CIMMYT says groundnut varieties good for income. ICRISAT unavailable for comment.
But are they climate-proof?
Because it could be worse than we thought for many species. And more. And what it means for in situ.
The latest on what’s killing bees.
The fig, in all its recondite glory.
Apples of France, Part Deux.
All you ever wanted to know about growing your own luffa.
IRRI DDG tries his hand at growing a rice crop. And blogs about it to boot. A nice idea, which should be widely emulated in the CG.

Big IUCN report says that biodiversity and agriculture are in conflict, they don’t really need to be, but it’s really complicated for them not to be. So that’s us all told.
If only annual crops were perennial, for example, eh?
If only we incorporated more sustainable agriculture in education, for example, eh? Apart from anything else we could still have beer. No word on the role of perennial barley though.
If only improved seeds were open source, for example, eh?
If only we could cryopreserve coral, for example, eh? Wait, what?