Or at least I am. It’s going to take me a day or two to get back fully into the blogging swing of things, but, until then, check out the extra-long list of nibbles to the right, below the photo.
Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone!
Nibbles: Journal, Biofuel source, Old seeds, Bees, Aquaculture, Millennium Seed Bank, Pests, Earthworms, Jellyfish, Cuba, Japan, Kerala, Queensland, Goats, Cacao, Savanna, Global maps, Nepal
- New Gene Conservation is out. Put out more flags.
- Biofuel from coffee grounds? Right. Hope the stuff was shade-grown, anyway.
- Is a lupin or date palm seed the oldest ever found? Let the controversy rage.
- Bees scare caterpillars as well as pollinating plants. Thankfully, Europe is on the job, colony-collapse-wise.
- Trouble for Scottish farmed salmon. And the wild ones may have their problems too. But aquaculture in general is booming, they say.
- Google Earth discovers forest. Not agrobiodiversity, but fun nonetheless.
- “It doesn’t just take in seeds – it sends them out.”
- Maize pest will love climate change. Well, some of them anyway.
- The latest review of earthworms discussed.
- Jellyfish and chips?
- Eating local pretty much unavoidable in Cuba. Yes, everyone wants to be a locavore these days.
- Japanese amateur botanists get into genebanking.
- “108 dishes based on jackfruit and seed varieties that are facing extinction were also exhibited at the festival.” 108?
- Queensland markets its tropical produce via a new website. No reason why others shouldn’t do the same, is there?
- “People shouldn’t underestimate how important a goat can be for a family in Africa.” Having had to assist in slaughtering one over Christmas, I certainly don’t.
- A rapid run-through the history of chocolate.
- Long-fallow agriculture in Mali leads to more, more diverse and taller trees.
- Global accessibility map published. Also one of fires, and intact forests. Let a thousand agrobiodiversity mash-ups bloom. Thanks, Andy.
- Nepal has lots of medicinal plants. Funny they don’t seem to feature in the Western Terai Landscape Complex Project.
Ex situ conservation of endangered plants of the US
An interesting post on the Denver Botanic Garden’s blog led me to the Center for Plant Conservation‘s 1 database of the National Collection of Endangered Plants of the US, which I’m ashamed to say I knew nothing about. It is interesting to us here because it includes crop wild relatives like Helianthus species. There’s also lots of information on how to fight invasives, which has been the subject of some discussion here in the past few days.
Micronesian bananas on display
Lois Englberger of the Island Food Community of Pohnpei tells us that “Dana Lee Ling is doing some exciting work on conservation and promotion of Pohnpei banana varieties, along with his teaching at the College of Micronesia-FSM.” The College has an ethnogarden, which includes 14 banana varieties, among many other things.
Nibbles: Frogs, Noni, Cassava etc, Commons, Starch, Aurochs, Oats
- Frog porridge.
- Noni in excruciating depth.
- Caribbean seeks food security, turns to “cassava, sweet potato, bananas, yams and many others”.
- Uncommonly interesting article on commons.
- Nice summary of the amylase-gene-copy-number-and-starch-in-the-diet story.
- Dutch aurochs survived longer than thought.
- Yes, we have no oats.