January 23, 2015 by Luigi Guarino

Sweet potato expert passes away

Very sad to hear of the passing a few days ago of Dr Daniel F. Austin. Among other things, he was one of the world’s top experts on the biodiversity of the sweet potato and its wild relatives.

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1. Festivals, rituals and seed-saving go hand in hand, as this photo essay on Koraput’s Adivasis shows for World Indigenous Peoples Day.
2. Speaking of unlikely alliances, Israeli and Palestinian researchers have teamed up on wheat that can take the heat in a warming, drying Middle East.
3. Not to be outdone in the resilience stakes, the cowpea shrugs off both drought and flooding, according to FAO.
4. If all this talk of resilient crops has you inspired, here’s a how-to on starting your own community seed bank, in South Africa or anywhere else for that matter.
5. And for when preservation is really about nostalgia: Romania’s Buzau genebank is keeping childhood mint flavours alive, chocolate, clove and vanilla notes included.
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Published on August 13, 2026