- The latest on TR4 resistant banana varieties in Australia.
- Lactobacillus is in fact 25 genera.
- Greenhouse tomatoes pretty diverse after all?
- Digitaria: from weed to forage.
- London’s mulberries.
Viral Vault vids
I guess people are mainly sitting at home making videos during the lockdown. Here are two on Svalbard which dropped within a couple of days of each other, presumably in time for the International Day for Biodiversity. Which is today, isn’t it?
And you might as well complement them with this nice article from Simran Sethi.
The EU gets a new biodiversity strategy
The decline of genetic diversity must also be reversed, including by facilitating the use of traditional varieties of crops and breeds. This would also bring health benefits through more varied and nutritious diets. The Commission is considering the revision of marketing rules for traditional crop varieties in order to contribute to their conservation and sustainable use. The Commission will also take measures to facilitate the registration of seed varieties, including for organic farming, and to ensure easier market access for traditional and locally adapted varieties.
That’s from the EU’s new biodiversity policy. Promising. But I don’t see anything in there about ex situ conservation to back up this conservation-through-use approach, welcome as it is.
What makes taro an orphan crop?
Live at 2pm GMT today 21 May…
LATER: Spoiler alert. The answer to the question in the title has to do with:
- inaccurate dogmas
- multiplicity of names
- negative social bias
- lack of research
- narrow ecological niche
- archaeological invisibility
- missing numbers
Potato atlas returns to life
I have decided to relaunch the potato and sweetpotato atlas sites — completed while working with CIP, but now personal — in hope that with active collaboration, they can become more current and relevant.
That’s from the very brave Kelly Theisen, on the World Potato Atlas site. We’ll see how both develop, and do what we can to help. The country chapters from the original versions of both atlases, which date back to the 1980’s, are also on there.
