Rowan is incensed about an NPR article denigrating tiger nuts that we Nibbled.
The article does this delicious food no justice and a bit more research would have gone a long way.
Read the whole thing, and have your say.
Will international tea party include genebanks?
Announcements such as this from UC Davis, of the launch of the Global Tea Initiative, make me wish there was a market for roving agrobiodiversity bloggers and tweeters. Alas, I’m reduced to the usual ploy of asking participants if they’d like to blog the thing for us.
Will genebanks be discussed? There aren’t that many collections around the world, and one of them, in Japan, accounts for 7,500 of the 11,700 accessions WIEWS knows about. And where’s China? Can’t help thinking that’s not altogether healthy. Lots to talk about…
Tapping into tapa memories
The announcement of a fascinating new project on Kew’s tapa cloth collection from the Pacific is a great opportunity to remind myself about this wonderful specimen I encountered on Tonga a few years ago. Yes, everything is about me in the end.
Nibbles: Coffee strategy, Agroforestry, Superfoods, Cyperus, Potato history, Precious tea, Wheat disease, Crowdfunding conservation
- Strategizing about coffee. Over cappuccinos, I suspect.
- Treesilience. I like that.
- Enough with the superfoods already.
- Which is not something anybody ever called tiger nuts.
- You can now officially blame the potato for the fall of civilization.
- A really expensive cup of tea.
- Wheat blast reaches Asia.
- Crowdfunding tree conservation on Hawaii.
Brainfood: Sesame diversity, Teff & drought, Semen bank, Forest genomic monitoring, Sahiwal cattle status, Genomic prediction, Ecuadorian homegardens, Spinach association mapping, ICRISAT pigeonpea & pearl millet, Women & milpa, African rice at AfricaRice, Bacteria helping wheat
- Analysis of Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Sesame Accessions from Africa and Asia as Major Centers of Its Cultivation. Strong geographic structure, and more diversity in Asia than Africa.
- Performance of Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] Genotypes for Yield and Yield Components Under Drought-Stressed and Non-Stressed Conditions. Out of 144 genotypes, 15 were good in ideal conditions, 8 under stress, and none, alas, in both cases.
- Genome resource banks pay conservation dividends. Banked semen from “genetically valuable” individuals used to slightly raise diversity in captive populations. Of black-footed ferrets.
- Conservation and Monitoring of Tree Genetic Resources in Temperate Forests. Theory.
- Logging by selective extraction of best trees: Does it change patterns of genetic diversity? The case of Nothofagus pumilio. Praxis: maybe.
- Population structure and demographic trends of the registered Sahiwal cattle in Kenya. It’s losing diversity, so Something Must Be Done.
- Genomic Prediction of Gene Bank Wheat Landraces. It’s not perfect, but not bad either.
- Plant diversity and ecosystem services in Amazonian homegardens of Ecuador. Ethnicity is the stongest determinant of floristic composition.
- Association mapping of leaf traits in spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.). “Five, seven and 14 SNPs were identified to be associated with surface texture, edge shape and petiole colour, respectively.”
- Pre-breeding to expand primary genepool through introgression of genes from wild Cajanus species for pigeonpea improvement. Even the tertiary genepool is interesting.
- Characterization and genetic potential of African pearl millet named landraces conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. 5 agronomic clusters, each with good stuff, but different good stuff.
- The participation of farm women in the milpa system of the Yucatán, Mexico. …is minimal.
- Screening African rice (Oryza glaberrima) for tolerance to abiotic stresses: I. Fe toxicity. 3 out of 2000!
- Alleviation of salt stress by halotolerant and halophilic plant growth-promoting bacteria in wheat (Triticum aestivum). Not by a huge amount. For one wheat variety. In hydroponics.