Luigi Guarino

June 10, 2013June 10, 2013

Featured: Peaches

Mary Winfree Found our post “Churros and peaches in the Canyon de Chelly” useful:

My back yard holds a sacred place and cemetery, we found it when a neighbor tried to build a road right up to my back door and the bones came up. We brought in Cadaver dogs who revealed a whole cemetery. It was a blessing in disguise because when we went to replant the bones of my little Indian Grandmother, there were more bones from the same tribe, that needed a home. They had been buried and then disturbed by a big hiway, and no place had been found for them. Now they will join the ones in my yard. We are holding a homecoming party for them. Songs both sad and happy, a BBQ and where they are replanted they are planting peach trees – now I know what that means…

We’re glad we were able to help a little.

June 10, 2013June 26, 2013

Brainfood: Maize domestication, Restoration success, Rare species, Pollinator loss, Diversity and productivity, Cacao/coffee & ecosystem services, Brazilian coffee, GM cotton benefits

Genetics and Consequences of Crop Domestication. The domestication bottleneck has consequences.
Evaluating Ecological Restoration Success: A Review of the Literature. There’s more of it going on. Evaluation, that is. Which is good. But still mainly from the USA and Australia, and not enough of the socioeconomic kind.
Rare Species Support Vulnerable Functions in High-Diversity Ecosystems. Ecosystems are distinctive because of their rare species.
Environmental factors driving the effectiveness of European agri-environmental measures in mitigating pollinator loss — a meta-analysis. We know how to lessen, but not how to mitigate, loss of pollinators.
Experimental evidence that evolutionarily diverse assemblages result in higher productivity. And the more distantly related the species, the higher the productivity gain.
A global meta-analysis of the biodiversity and ecosystem service benefits of coffee and cacao agroforestry. Agroforests better than plantations, but forests best of all.
Coefficient of Parentage in Coffea arabica L. Cultivars Grown in Brazil. Be afraid.
Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security. Turns out GM cotton has increased the income and thus improved the diets of adopting Indian farmers. Well, maybe.

June 6, 2013June 6, 2013

Nibbles: Pretty, Peak soil, Wine history, Ancient foodways, Offal, Durian, Exotic plant foods, Cassava, Mozzarella, Nutrition report, Superfoods

Jules Pretty meditates on the impermanence of things.
Like soil. And bumblebees.
Ah, well, let’s not get maudlin. Pass the bottle. Well looky here. The French got wine from the Italians. I feel better already.
And Canadians had clam gardens a thousand years ago. Probably still do, actually.
Along with offal, no doubt. Which did not, however, seem to play any role in a recent Mesolithic dinner. Though French wine did. Which is weird.
The best fruit in the world gets the Kew treatment.
And is included in a weird list of the 100 weirdest food plants.
Cassava‘s pretty weird too.
The best cheese in the world is not French either.
All of which foods no doubt feature in FAO’s new report on nutrition. Which is really important, so don’t let the flippancy fool ya. The Lancet agrees. And you can do your bit too.
Ah, but does quinoa feature in that FAO report? The backlash continues…

June 5, 2013

Just a quick note to say that the Map of Life, which we blogged about a year back, now covers plants too. Still a bit weak in the sharing department, after a quick glance, but I’ll reserve final judgement until I’ve had more of a chance to play with it.

June 3, 2013May 25, 2013

Brainfood: Grass evolution, Great Lakes fisheries, African cassava, Sustainable UK farms, USA biodiversity loss, PVS, Agriculture to the rescue

Evidence for recent evolution of cold tolerance in grasses suggests current distribution is not limited by (low) temperature. Geography a better predictor of cold tolerance than phylogeny.
May we eat biodiversity? How to solve the impasse of conservation and exploitation of biodiversity and fishery resources. We may, if we all agree.
Genetic diversity of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) landraces and cultivars from southern, eastern and central Africa. There isn’t any.
Evidence of sustainable intensification among British farms. Amazingly, there is some, and aiming to increase profitability can get you there.
Key areas for conserving United States’ biodiversity likely threatened by future land use change. To the tune of 5-8% area loss, and not counting climate change. Would be interesting to know what that will do to crop wild relatives.
Dilemma in participatory selection of varieties. If it’s a one-time deal, as it often is, it ain’t gonna work.
Green Revolution research saved an estimated 18 to 27 million hectares from being brought into agricultural production. And saved 2 million ha of forest. But less than Borlaug thought. More on “Agricultural innovation to save the environment” from PNAS.

Author: Luigi Guarino

Featured: Peaches

Brainfood: Maize domestication, Restoration success, Rare species, Pollinator loss, Diversity and productivity, Cacao/coffee & ecosystem services, Brazilian coffee, GM cotton benefits

Nibbles: Pretty, Peak soil, Wine history, Ancient foodways, Offal, Durian, Exotic plant foods, Cassava, Mozzarella, Nutrition report, Superfoods

Mapping more life

Brainfood: Grass evolution, Great Lakes fisheries, African cassava, Sustainable UK farms, USA biodiversity loss, PVS, Agriculture to the rescue