Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Competition and environment have traditionally been seen as the driving forces for community dynamics, so it’s significant to see that the composition and diversity of a plant community can be affected by changing a few genes in an invisible fungus inside one species of grass.
Indeed it is.
Lots of fish stuff on the tubes today, mainly from the CITES conference in Doha. There’s of course news of the rejection of the proposed ban on bluefin tuna. But the beluga is also in trouble. Why are such fish threatened? Increasing consumer demand large, predatory — and therefore rarer — species, says a study.
A study of a century’s worth of seafood recipes has revealed that big, predatory fish like salmon and tuna have grown in prestige, even as overfishing has caused their populations to plummet – sometimes to the point of endangerment.
Time for a move back down the food chain.
Another feel-good genebank story. Eric Vercoe, now 85, grew rice in the 60s in TePuke near Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty in the North Island of New Zealand. Alas, the project eventually came to a stop because of flooding problems, but there has been some interest recently in re-establishing the crop, using more modern technology, but the same variety. Called TePuke (gold), this had been developed in the area over 12 years from an original introduction from Japan. It grew very well, had good cooking quality and very good taste. Unfortunately, it was no longer anywhere to be found in New Zealand. So Mr Vercoe asked the IRRI genebank, where it turned out that a deposit of the variety had been made in 1965. He received seeds last summer, and rice is again being grown in the most southerly location for the crop that our friends at IRRI know of.
Yes, fungi have genebanks too.