Nibbles: Prof. Mithen, Commons, Park Grass, Maize genome dupe, Training breeders, Insect-eating fungi, Shea, Teff breeding, Cannabis genome, Organic study, Old sunflower domestication, Rick’s tomatoes

Developer of super broccoli reflects on his career. With photo of collectors in NSFW shorts.
Touring the commons of the world. Thankfully no tight shorts in sight.
Video explaining Rothamsted’s Park Grass experiment. Apparel entirely acceptable, don’t worry.
Ten million-year-old genome duplication finally came good when ancient farmers domesticated maize.
Training materials for African breeders to be developed.
Fungal diversity to the rescue of plants, for a change.
Africa’s black soap.
Improving teff. That’s a low bar, I suspect.
A genome I’m sure we can all get behind.
Oh dear, that organic meta-analysis “flawed” after all. Will it ever end?
Rethinking sunflower domestication. An oldie but goldie, which re-surfaced today for some reason. Does anyone know where we are with this now?
The Deliverance of tomatoes.

A paean to diverse diets is just what we all need.
And another one, from the MIT Technology Review of all places.
Menawhile, there’s only one reference to dietary diversity in the World Bank’s investment framework for nutrition.
Maybe you have to quantify that diversity before you can save it? Now where have I heard that before?
Meanwhile, Europe reports on biodiversity-friendly farming practices. Does that include the biodiversity of the actual crops? Perhaps surprisingly, yes!
You want biodiversity-friendly farming practices? Talk to Indigenous people. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has launched an e-consultation on “Preserving, strengthening and promoting Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems and traditional practices for sustainable food systems.”
There’s diversity in asparagus too.
Genebanks can help with those biodiversity-friendly practices, diverse diets and rops and Indigenous practices.
Even big international genebanks.
Even the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
But some are in trouble.
Though others are coming back.