Jeremy Cherfas

March 1, 2012March 1, 2012

Berry go Round No. 49

Bora Zivkovic at Blog Around the Clock hosts the latest Berry go Round blog carnival, with botanical news of all sorts. There is much there of interest to us, including longer pieces on items we merely Nibbled. Like the utility of myrrh trees and the story of Maasai reconciliation grass, which some sheep could have told whoever named it thus wasn’t a grass. Wonder if it gets crushed when elephants fight? There’s a new orchid that smells of Chanel No. 5 (but not, apparently, of ylang-ylang). Bitter almond essence, an instructional video for blowflies, and wild licorice round out the picture, but there’s a lot more there to explore.

Thanks Bora. Next month’s carnival will be hosted by Greg Laden. Submit here, and why not volunteer to host?

February 28, 2012February 28, 2012

Nibbles: Syria, Manioc, Climate change

In case you were worrying about the impact of the unrest in Syria on the genebank, fear not: The Global Crop diversity Trust has your back.
AoB Blog investigates manioc and marriage. Cassava!
Andy Jarvis climbs mountain to explain impact of climate change on agriculture to Scientific American.

February 27, 2012February 27, 2012

Nibbles: Sunflowers, Gardens, Cassava, Gates, History

Everything you need to know about sunflowers, as it happens. They’re not cassava.
New York Botanical Gardens has a climate change garden. Coupla apples mentioned, no other food, not even cassava.
Cassava, “the Rambo of food crops,” will save the world. Did Rambo use silver bullets?
The Center for Global Development thinks Bill Gates is the cassava of agriculture. No, wait …
JStor Plant Biology rounds up his favourite historical food papers. Cassava absent

February 22, 2012February 22, 2012

Nibbles: Chinese agriculture, Domesticating trees, Greening economies, Genebanks, Millets

Modern Chinese agronomist praises ancient Chinese agriculture, possibly gets in trouble.
Domesticating trees is still the next big thing.
Transform agriculture for a greener economy, says SciDev.net.
VoA on genebanks, including Svalbard.
Gerbil enthusiasts tackle millets. Yes, gerbils.

February 22, 2012February 22, 2012

Luigi speaks! A way out of genebank database hell?

There’s nothing like being associated with manifest power to pique the interest of mainstream media. And so it was when The White House, no less, hosted a breakfast on Innovation for Global Development. Announced at the breakfast was a new version of “the Germplasm Resources Information Network-Global (GRIN-Global), a powerful but easy-to-use, Internet-based information management system for the world’s plant genebanks”. Journalists who normally wouldn’t give GBDBH the time of day were suddenly queuing to explain why this was such a good thing. And among the people they queued for was the Global Crop Diversity Trust’s Luigi Guarino. Here’s the BBC World Service’s story. Luigi speaks at 1’21”

GRIN Global on the BBC World Service, Feb 18 2012

Suitably enlightened, forgive my cynicism when I wonder what prompted a web page about the International Crop Information System to suddenly bleep on my horizon-scanning radar. At first blush it looks like it does much the same job as GRIN-Global, but that can’t possibly be correct. It must do something slightly different — powerful, undoubtedly, but by the look of things not easy to use and not internet based — which I welcome in the name of diversity and the resilience that promotes.