Luigi Guarino

August 28, 2015August 28, 2015

Potatoes in the Arctic

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Wonderful to see indigenous leaders from the Parque de la Papa — joined by Alejandro Argumedo of Asociacion ANDES, the Director General of FAO, Graziano de Silva, and Marie Haga of the Global Crop Diversity Trust — deposit botanical seeds of their native potatoes, which they themselves produced with help from CIP, in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. A great example of collaboration and complementarity between on farm and ex situ conservation.

August 26, 2015

Nibbles: Weird veggies, National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, Indian litchis, Colony Collapse Disorder

Funky vegetables from around the world.
Ft Collins genebank on CNN.
India gets a litchi genebank. None of that in Ft Collins.
Honeybees get help from museum collections.

August 26, 2015August 26, 2015

Banaue Rice Terraces get the drone treatment

Here is the panorama of the Banaue Rice Terraces from Chris's drone, 23 August 2015.

Posted by Gene Hettel on Tuesday, 25 August 2015

August 25, 2015

Nibbles: German zucchini, Nice tomatoes, Genebank Database Hell, Pakistan genebank, Brachiaria genomics, Haiti agriculture, Chinese potatoes, Green green grass of home, Domestication book, Rudisha returns!

Deadly zucchini sweep through Germany. Actually just one possible hybrid with ornamental squash, apparently, probably, I’m told by a vegetables expert.
Everybody loves photos of heirloom tomatoes.
Sorting out genebank data management at IRRI.
It’s very tricky to move the Pakistan national genebank.
Where are the Al-resistance genes in Brachiaria?
Le jardin créole in Haiti as a model of sustainable agriculture.
China’s spud revolution. And more.
Grass is America’s biggest crop. Tell me something I don’t know. What’s that you say? Not that kind of grass?
Nice excerpt on cats from recent book on domestication by Richard C. Francis.
The plant-based diets of East African long-distance runners.

August 24, 2015August 10, 2015

Brainfood: Citrus colours, Soil biodiversity portal, Bean genome, Food diversity & security, French landscape diversity, US pigs, Alien crops, Thai food retail

Exploring the diversity in Citrus fruit colouration to decipher the relationship between plastid ultrastructure and carotenoid composition. New, weird plastids mean new, weird colours.
Towards a global platform for linking soil biodiversity data. A DivSeek for soils?
A reference genome for common bean and genome-wide analysis of dual domestications. Not sure how we missed this. Two domestications confirmed, with distinct genomic signatures.
Variability of On-Farm Food Plant Diversity and Its Contribution to Food Security: A Case Study of Smallholder Farming Households in Western Kenya. No relationship between farm diversity and food security. Say what?
What is the plant biodiversity in a cultural landscape? A comparative, multi-scale and interdisciplinary study in olive groves and vineyards (Mediterranean France). Low intensity management with an eye to heritage is good for diversity. But, given the above, so what?
Relationships among and variation within rare breeds of swine. American pig breeds are real. Mostly.
Alien Crop Resources and Underutilized Species for Food and Nutritional Security of India. Bring them on!
Traditional, modern or mixed? Perspectives on social, economic, and health impacts of evolving food retail in Thailand. It would be a pity of fresh markets were to disappear.