Anastasia has a dream:
I’d like to see some transgenic plants that simply resist fungal infection, but that’s not organic – even though it would reduce or eliminate the need for chemical sprays.
Nibbles: Climate change, IPR, Urban ag * 2, Lumpers, Fodder, Andes map
- The Arid Lands Information Network has published a briefing on Climate change and the threat to African food security.
- Free Seeds, Not Free Beer. A paper on intellectual property rights. Luigi asks: Why not both?
- Urban farming around the world, a slideshow. No wonder Back40 thinks its all hobby or hack.
- More urban farms in the US. Enough already!
- See the spud behind the Irish Potato Famine. Today. In Guelph. That’s Canada.
- Napier Stunt Disease threat to Ugandan milk production.
- The Ecosystems Map of the Northern and Central Andes is out.
Housekeeping news
A couple of things. Firstly, a reader asked whether we could revert to a previous set-up on our home page, so that all posts were visible in their entirety, rather than having three in full and the rest as a couple of columns of excerpts. “I dislike having to scan sideways and click through to read fairly recent posts,” was the reason.
Well, I don’t dislike that at all. Nor does Luigi. But we live to serve you, our readers. So we’ll do the democracy thing again. There’s a poll on the right; pop on over and vote.
I’ve also implemented threaded comments. 1 “Wha,” you ask. It’s just a way of making it easier to respond to a specific comment without all that @Name hipster grooviness. Just click on the Reply button, and WordPress will do the rest. If there’s an outcry, I’ll de-implement it. But I don’t think there will be.
Hard graft for Pluots
Rhizowen noted that it is possible to buy at least one kind of Pluot® in Europe. Graines Baumaux offers the variety Flavor Supreme® for €26.70. This is the same Graines Baumaux that initiated a prosecution of seedsavers (and merchants) Kokopelli Association because, by failing to register varieties, Kokopelli enjoyed an “unfair trading advantage”.
It would be very remiss of me to suggest that one could almost certainly easily graft a Pluot onto a normal plum rootstock, or even a dwarfing rootstock, if one were so minded.
Nibbles: Biofuels, Nuts, Homegardens, Urban Ag, Fruit
- Maized and confused. The Economist looks at ethanol. Jeremy says: great headline.
- Would Cassava be any better? The post doesn’t even consider the question.
- Is it nuts to grow almonds in California and ship them to Vietnam for processing and packaging?
- This project aims to better understand the levels of agrobiodiversity found in homegardens. Yes, but in the UK?
- [A] gold mine of useful resources for city farmers.
- … a visionary pomologist, a fruit scientist, a species of practical rapturist … Wow!