- A Wheat Germplasm Database To Rule Them All. No, not from CGIAR.
- New livestock maps of the world. Yes, from CGIAR.
- Kashmir ponders an apple genebank.
- More from Game of Strawberries.
- Wanna study the population genomics of cheese fungi? Course you do.
- Domesticating local fruit trees good for nutrition, but need secure tenure and good planting material.
- Building better broccoli, the genome way.
- Early domesticated dogs helped in mammoth hunts.
- Current extinction rate about 1000 times higher than background. Databases can help with that, believe it or not.
- Building a national PGRFA system in Bolivia. When will they ratify the ITPGRFA, though?
Nibbles: Global plant cover, Veggies in Africa, Ancient middens, Raspberry fruit colour, Citrus greening, Jordan biodiversity, US nutrition, Subsidies, Seed and voucher fair, Bean diversity, Grape mildew fight
- GIS geeks sort out land cover at last.
- Role of vegetables in combating malnutrition in Africa. Author offers pdf of paper.
- Ancient native American middens just keep on giving.
- Raspberry colour good predictor of various fruit post-harvest characteristics. Good short-cut for breeders.
- Getting to the root of citrus greening. Scary disease.
- Freaky stuff about using frog eggs to figure out the genetics of grapevine’s susceptibility to another scary disease.
- Video of our friend Dr Nigel Maxted on Jordan’s socioeconomically important plants.
- Physician, heal thyself. Indian tells USAID to take care of its own food insecurity.
- How to create subsidies that promote biodiversity, in a model, which is probably highly unrealistic.
- Very realistic notes from a seed and voucher fair in Malawi.
- And anecdotes on the benefits of bean diversity in Uganda.
Nibbles: Tomato colour, INBio demise, Specimens, Plant lore, Ancient chickens, Edible flowers, Urban veg, Trees & nutrition
- Deconstructing the colour of tomatoes. h/t @kctomato
- INBio folds? Or (h/t Jacob) government takes responsibility?
- Discussion on whether natural history specimens are necessary.
- So there’s a place where you can record your plant lore. No word on whether that’s linked to specimens.
- Yellow skin in chickens is a recent trait. Specimens involved. Part of that PNAS special feature on domestication.
- What have bees ever done for us?
- Edible flowers not just for pansies.
- Australia funds World Veg to research urban veg in Africa.
- Remember how we included in Brainfood a few months back a paper linking tree cover with dietary diversity and fruit/veg consumption in Africa? Well, here’s the PowerPoint.
Nibbles: Hawaii research farms, Disneyland dates, Sumerian beer, Danish beer, Hipster foods, Wheat rust, Salmon farming, Quinoa pix, Asparagus cost, Llama evacuation, Japanese hemp, Awards
- “You can trace the genetic makeup of most corn grown in the U.S., and in many other places around the world, to Hawaii.” There’s a GMO angle, but that’s frankly the least interesting thing about this.
- Disneyland protects really old date palm. Sweet.
- “A Hymn to Ninkasi.” Sumerian beer 101.
- Bronze Age beer: not quite as old as Sumerian, but still…
- Hipsters told to stop worrying about beer, among other foody things.
- They should worry about wheat rust though.
- And salmon.
- And quinoa, of course. Pictorial taster for a forthcoming, restricted Harper’s feature.
- The true cost of Peruvian asparagus is also kinda worrying. Those poor hipsters.
- But Peru has other stuff to worry about, like active volcanoes and llamas.
- “In haiku poetry… key words describing the stages of cannabis cultivation denoted the season when the poem is set.” Oh, I’m researching that, and no mistake.
- Nominations sought for World Food Prize and Wangari Maathai Award.
Special Brainfood Extra: Economic Botany, Volume 68, Number 1
A whole issue of a journal given the Brainfood treatment. Because I’ve got allergies and can’t go out and it’s a holiday and I’m bored. Think of it as an Easter egg. Unnecessary, but tasty.
- Are Ecologically Important Tree Species the Most Useful? A Case Study from Indigenous People in the Bolivian Amazon. Among medicinal and edible species, the most used are not the ones that most strike you as you walk around. Unlike the case for species used in construction and crafts.
- The Electronic Trade in Greek Endemic Plants: Biodiversity, Commercial and Legal Aspects. Seemingly profitable, but possibly largely illegal. And I’m willing to bet that the ones that are most traded are the ones that are most difficult to find.
- Medicinal Plant Trade in Sierra Leone: Threats and Opportunities for Conservation. No internet involved, but still profitable. For how long? I guess that depends on how easy they are to find, and harvest sustainably.
- Structure and Floristic Composition of Forest Management Systems Associated with the Edible Fruit Tree Oecopetalum mexicanum in the Sierra de Misantla, Veracruz, Mexico. You can manage a landscape to favour a particular, strikingly important species, and also promote diversity.
- Contemporary Gathering Practice and Antioxidant Benefit of Wild Seaweeds in Hawai’i. No word on whether the most obvious ones are are the ones that are most used, but I gotta believe that they are.
- The Food System during the Formative Period in West Mesoamerica. Advent of ceramics may have had an important effect on crops and food.
- Fuelling the Ancient Maya Salt Industry. Not to mention on their seasoning.
- Identification of Cannabis Fiber from the Astana Cemeteries, Xinjiang, China, with Reference to Its Unique Decorative Utilization. Used to make the tails on horse figurines. No word on further, ahem, ritual uses.
- Big Messages in Small Details: Nature in Roman Archaeology. Even the small details of the natural world on the Ara Pacis have meaning. Like the horses’ tails?