It’s Easter. A bigger than usual haul to see you safely through the lean times ahead.
- Simons says, plant a tree. And here’s how.
- FAO had an e-conference on “Impacts of genomics and other ‘omics’ for the crop, forestry, livestock, fishery and agro-industry sectors in developing countries” and all I got was this pdf.
- I personally think The Dude would prefer seeds.
- That potato day-length gene paper deconstructed. A bit.
- Owen’s
Potato beanhopniss seeds have sprouted. Can a new variety be far away? - No doubt he’ll be contributing to a list of US seed suppliers for perennial veg.
- There are perennial peppers, you know. A new weapon as the pepper breeding wars heat up?
- And enthusiasm for Kerala Agricultural University cools down.
- “Attention responsible gene stewards!” You had me at Attention. (But you lost me at responsible gene stewards.) On the other hand, if you are “diligent about developing or releasing durable varieties that will ensure long-term global wheat security” stick with it.
- Arroz, trigo, maíz y patata. The usual story: Casi todos los esfuerzos de la Revolución Verde se han enfocado hacia la mejora de los denominados cultivos principales.
- Farming in the Sinai is 5000 years older than it used to be.
- How to get genuine maple syrup.
- Raw milk is fine. No it’s not.
- Nestle and Mars commit to equality for women cocoa farmers. Mondelēz has not yet responded to Oxfam-inspired consumer pressure. Perhaps because few people know they’re Cadbury and Suchard and Toberlone and … what’s with that stupid ē anyway?
Enjoy that Creme Egg!
Arroz, trigo, maíz y patata.
“En general, hoy en día, nuestros cultivos alimentarios siguen evolucionando in situ, o en el campo, gracias al trabajo de millones de agricultores que mantienen la diversidad genética de los cultivos junto con el conocimiento tradicional, …” I believe it but, apart from numerous varieties easily selected from `off-types’, can we put a number/metric to this on-farm evolution. I think evolution/adaptation to abiotic factors – for example, climate, day-length – can never be up-to-date, while adaptation to biotic factors – pests and diseases – could actually get worse (again, problems of a metric). A sort of one step forward, two steps back evolution. This could gradually reduce the genetic base in-situ (often already narrow) and lead to crop varieties doing better somewhere else as they escaped co-evolved pests and diseases (as noted by Purseglove, and in CIAT, Jennings and Cock).
Farming in the Sinai
I read with pleasure the Israeli work on the Negev and water management before doing field work in Yemen (then North Yemen) long ago. Yemeni water management for agriculture seemed to have all the Negev technology and then some, for example, vast areas of terracing specifically for capturing water and silt run-off (I suspect induced erosion) and the huge pre-Islamic dam at Marib. I failed to find literature on classical Yemeni water management compared to the extensive reports on the Negev: anyone know of anything?