- Everyday agriculture mysteries solved.
- Other animals self-medicate too.
- Dueling pigeonpea genome sequencers? Who knew. Well spotted, James.
- I’m thankful for turkeys.
- And for the crop wild relatives in ICARDA’s genebank too.
Featured: Orange sweet potato
Yassir Islam of HarvestPlus clarifies the story of orange sweet potato adoption in Mozambique:
First, the paper clearly states that there was farmer adoption of OPS and substitution for white and yellow varieties: “An average of 77% of households…were considered to have adopted OSP for cultivation, representing a 26 percentage point increase in households growing sweet potatoes from the baseline….the increase in OSP intake was largely due to the substitution of OSP for white and yellow sweet potatoes.”
Read the equally important points two and three here.
Pizzutello: An ampelographer writes
Our discussion of Ruoppolo’s grapes found its way to Erika Maul, curator of the German grape collection and manager of the European Vitis database. 1 Many thanks to Helmut Knuepffer for facilitating that process and for providing this translation of Erika’s comments.
About 20 years ago I tried the to solve the confusion concerning Pizzutello, Cornichon Blanc, Dedo de Dama, Kadin Barmak, Lady’s Finger Grape, etc. from behind my writing desk. Since this turned out to be impossible, I then introduced grape varieties from different germplasm collections, to get the thing on track. For various reasons, I did not succeed and since then I did not take up the matter again.
However, what appears certain to me is that these grape forms had quite some importance as a curiosity, due to the particular shape of their fruits. (That shape evolves when the seeds do not develop. The well-shaped outer part includes a seed, while in the inner shorter compartment the seed is only rudimentary.) Presumably these forms come from the Near East, and they do not ripen in our northern growing areas — even in warmer summers.
That will make a nice project for someone some day…
Featured: CWR in Europe
Shelagh tells Luigi to chill about CWR in Europe:
In the PGR Secure project we are developing a comprehensive conservation strategy for European CWR and this will include a list of high priority species in need of conservation attention at regional level.
There’s a lot more to her comment, so read the whole thing. Oh and there’s a follow-up too.
Nibbles: Taiwan seedbank, American agroforestry
- Taiwan should establish a national seed bank. It says here. But will it be a genebank?
- Agroforestry in the USA and in the ancient Maya lands.