- BBC Food Programme on wheat, with the authors of Amber Waves and The Man Who Tried to Feed the World.
- Tides of History podcast on livestock domestication with Prof. Greger Larson. He thinks “domestication” should be used as a descriptor of a state rather than a label for a process. He also thinks that animals became “domesticated” basically only once (except for pigs).
- A citrus fruit you never heard of is crucial to Japanese cuisine.
- Bringing back heirloom rice and other traditional crops in the Sea Islands. And more.
- Building back better: from 200 food systems recommendation to 41 no regrets actions. And why we need them NOW!
- A Peruvian peasant organization goes digital.
- Huge book on strengthening seed systems in South Asia.
- Nice CGN video on seed processing in genebanks.
- How can businesses value biodiversity? Here come the guidelines.
Nibbles: Costich leaving seminar, Dibble video, AnGR plan, Building back better
- Dr Denise Costich says goodbye to the CIMMYT maize genebank. Sad.
- Dr Flint Dibble talks to himself about his Neolithic package.
- Europe’s plan for conserving transboundary livestock breeds.
- How are genebanks doing in the pandemic?
Brainfood: Bending the curve edition
- Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy. Meaning: (i) sustainable agricultural intensification, (ii) trade, (iii) less food waste, (iv) more plant-based human diets, and (v) more and better protected areas.
- The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land. See (iv) above.
- Just ten percent of the global terrestrial protected area network is structurally connected via intact land. See (v) above.
- Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife. See (i) above.
- A cultivated planet in 2010 – Part 1: The global synergy cropland map. Gotta know where the cropland is before you can do (i) above.
- Advances in plant phenomics: From data and algorithms to biological insights. Fancy maths can really help with (i) above.
- Retrospective Quantitative Genetic Analysis and Genomic Prediction of Global Wheat Yields. Different fancy maths shows that CIMMYT’s Obregon wheat testing site can really help with (i) above.
- Diversity analysis of 80,000 wheat accessions reveals consequences and opportunities of selection footprints. Here’s some stuff that wheat breeders can use to develop new materials to test at Obregon using phenomics, genomics and fancy maths.
- First report on cryopreservation of mature shoot tips of two avocado (Persea americana Mill.) rootstocks. This should help with (iv) above. Eventually, work with me here.
- Bread and porridge at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe: A new method to recognize products of cereal processing using quantitative functional analyses on grinding stones. Ahem. Well… No, sorry, I got nothing.
Nibbles: Vavilov podcast, Pomological book, Wine press, Banana data
- Audio drama on Vavilov. You heard me.
- Proceedings from the First Annual Wild & Seedling Pomological Exhibition. First of many, I hope.
- A really old Phoenician wine press.
- Update on banana genebank data.
Lay up your dates on earth
I see Jeremy had some fun in his latest newsletter. Want more of the same, every week: subscribe.
Previously, in the Methuselah date story: around 50 years ago archaeologists excavating Masada in Israel dug up a small pile of date seeds. In 2008, to most people’s surprise, one of those seeds — roughly 2000 years old — germinated and was named the Methuselah date. Like its namesake, it proved to be male. Date male and female flowers grow on separate plants, so wails and lamentations accompanied far-fetched plans to tinker with Methuselah.
And it came to pass that in recent years another 32 well-preserved date seeds were set to germinate. And lo, six of them did germinate, and their names were given as Boaz, Eve, Jeremiah, Jonah, Judah and Uriel, and they too were of ancient lineage. And when they came of maturity and revealed unto others their gender, Eve became Adam, and Jeremiah became Hannah and Judah in her turn became Judith.
And Hannah brought forth flowers in their beauty, and the researchers carried the male seed from Methuselah unto Hannah’s flowers and the flowers swelled and were ripened. Then the researchers plucked of the fruits and tasted, and said: “The honey-blonde, semi-dry flesh had a fibrous, chewy texture and a subtle sweetness.”
The New York Times has the story, and there is a bunch of really interesting science behind some of the conjectures.