Biotechnology

Nibbles: Plant names, Tomato trifecta, Amaranth, Corn wars, Wild lettuce, Dying, Indian ag, Chocographic, Root symbionts, Rehabilitation, Mesquite, Extreme weather, Saviour plants, Pawpaw, Japanese rice, Coffee museum, Caribbean early ag, Amazonian livelihoods, Vislak on corn

In praise of common names. Meh. You won’t see a Latin name in this whole Nibbles. See how you like it.
Building a tomato. In Spanish.
Tracking a tomato.
The dark side of tomatoes.
Amaranth to rescue Mexicans from obesity.
Seeds of contention.
Finding the lost Least Lettuce.
Indigo goes back to the future.
What if the monsoon fails? MS Swaminathan has some answers.
Nice chocolate infographic from FAO.
A diverse microbial community in and around roots helps plants thrive. The Science article is behind a paywall, but there’s a helpful infographic on Twitter.
The US has a National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration. Vision? The right seed in the right place at the right time. Wish I’d thought of that.
When otherwise useful trees attack. Ah, the irony of this coming right after the previous one.
UK’s Global Food Security programme says extreme weather events are increasing and we must adapt agriculture. Good to know.
And today’s Five Plants That Will Save the World are…
Maybe add pawpaw to that?
Japanese rice farmers: change gonna come.
Nice coffee museum in Brazil.
Early agriculture in the Caribbean: Cuba and Trinidad.
The babaçu breakers of Maranhão are under threat. What’s babaçu? Yeah, well, look it up.
“Seed banking began about 30 years ago as an improvement to individual farmers storing and using their own seeds.” Riiiiight.
That Vilsak is a card.

High-level agricultural scientists thinks high agricultural science will feed the world. Oh, and smart policies.
This new rice would qualify, I suspect.
Participatory varietal selection manual revised to take women into account. Someone mention high science?
No such manual needed in India, it seems.
The banana-is-doomed story sure has legs. Or hands.
What did the Inkas ever do for us?
Is agriculture diverse enough? That is the question.
Yerba mate gets sequenced. Because it can be.
Following an Indian cucumber down the value chain.
Thank your lucky stars for this weedy-looking tomato wild relative.
“We’re interested in the color, shape and sizes of the vegetables from 400 years ago, compared to modern cultivars of the same vegetables: the deep sutures on cantaloupe in Italian art of the Renaissance or the lack of pigmentation in pictures of watermelon compared to today.”
Quite a bit of agrobiodiversity featured in Day of Archaeology. Nice idea.

And we’re back! While we were away…

…the Pope pontificated on climate change and GMOs, among other things.
And so did the CGIAR.
Boffins in the UK suggested that agroecology might be important to sustainable intensification. No word on whether the CGIAR is listening.
Bioversity asked for contributions on whether ABS can support farmers. No word on whether anyone is listening.
And The Economist asked: who cares, anyway?
Google said it would help botanists catalogue all plants.
Nutella was bad, and then ok again.
Bees were again found to be important to agriculture, but not all bees.
The pros and cons of GMOs were trotted out again. And again.
Climate change was blamed for smaller loaves of bread. Which as far as I can tell might not be a totally bad thing.
And for the need to grow drought-resistant legumes.
The EU launched a satellite to monitor crops.
Meanwhile, people just got on with it, in their own, sometimes weird, way…
…breeding wheat. Even organic wheat. Even perennial. Even in Scotland.
…breeding strawberries. Even with wild relatives.
…or just adopting the raw materials of breeding.
Growing organic tea in China.
Conserving yams in Madagascar.
Trying to find the appropriate seeds to grow in Kenya.
And giving probably inappropriate seeds to Ebola-hit farmers.
Which they can now eat using sorghum spoons.