Author: Luigi Guarino

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Lots of questions about agrobiodiversity

After years of web-based consultation and diligent sifting through the numerous submissions, we now have the final list of “One hundred important questions facing plant science research” in the form of a paper in New Phytologist. The 100-questions thing may be approaching self-parody, but I will resist the temptation to mock the whole enterprise and simply point out here that there are several questions in the list which involve agricultural biodiversity, its conservation and effective use. I’ll leave you with the most obvious example, question E6:

How can we ensure the long-term availability of genetic diversity within socio-economically valuable gene pools?

Leave your answer in the comments.

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Featured: Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo

Eve knows what that maize stuff in the Machu Picchu light show is all about:

I think the figures in your screen grab are intended to represent Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, the legendary founders of Cusco and the Inca empire. Once they found the place where the golden scepter could be plunged easily all the way into the earth, that meant that was the place to build their city. They taught the people about agriculture (hence the maize), weaving, and all aspects of civilization, and went on to found the lineage of Inca rulers. There are many versions of this story — a couple can be found here or here.

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Taking tomato improvement to the masses

It’s basically your standard I-found-redemption-in-a-tomato-heirloom story:

Another life somewhere in the pastoral wilds of Co Kilkenny, in a summer long ago, the wife of a Finnish jewellerymaker brought slices of tomato to the lunch table: slices a centimetre thick, a hand’s breadth across, jewel-bright with olive oil and scattered with chopped green basil. This simple revelation of what tomatoes should be, enfolded in mouthfuls of sweetness and scent, set my early hankering for the good life.

But this piece in the Irish Times did teach me something for a change. It taught me there’s something called the EU-Sol project “to improve the quality of the tomatoes and potatoes we eat.” But there’s more to it than that: check out the bits of its website aimed at the general public and schools.

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Nibbles: Dutch soybeans, American flora and vegetation, Cassava pests, Bangladesh biocrats

  • Do you have a small parcel of land in the Netherlands that you would not mind being used to test soybean varieties? Non-GMO, mind.
  • Kew has a couple of new online resources on Neotropical plants.
  • We need an international early warning system for cassava problems.
  • “Is there anyone in Bangladesh to look deep into the workings of the biocrats who are bent on advancing the cause of giant companies at the expense of the people’s long-term food security?”