- Tritodendrum hits the market.
- DS Athwal would have approved. RIP.
- Medieval bakers too, I bet.
- Want some cherry tomatoes on your bread? No? Try these then.
- Lots of crop wild relatives among newly discovered plants. See (some of) them on the new State of the World’s Plants report from Kew. And no, Kew, none of them are “miserable.”
- Early farmers unintentionally produced vegetables with larger seeds simply by cultivating them. And cereals too.
- Head of IUCN Red Data List Unit in impassioned plea for IUCN Red Data List process.
- What is taro good for? I’m glad you asked.
- I missed International Hummus Day? How could this happen?
- Textilia Linnaeana! What do you mean I’ve just had my birthday?
- Lowering the glycemic index of rice for the Chinese market.
- Fighting for avocados. Literally.
I learn a great deal from your blog. I too just had my birthday, and am furious with you for introducing me to Textilia Linnaeana!
“Of course, the farmers who bred the early versions of these crops may have been targeting large seeds because they knew these would give larger yields”. They knew nothing of the sort — smaller seeds can easily give larger yields, which is probably why 99% of grasses have seeds smaller than 20mg (all the original wild cereals have seeds larger than that pre-domestication). The question to ask is why does any plant species have large seed — clue: nothing to do with domestication, witness coco-de-mer on an oceanic island with no humans until recently.