Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
IRRI is celebrating the 50th anniversary of IR8, one of the more important crop varieties ever produced by plant breeders, with a neat timeline of the history of its development and impact.
I was going to include a pedigree of the thing, but, alas, the International Rice Information System seems to be down at the time of writing. Oh well.
LATER: National Geographic to the rescue with that IR8 pedigree.
If you’re into the pests and diseases of wheat, soybean, potato, maize or rice you may want to consider taking the Global Crop Health Survey.
Quantification of the importance of crop diseases and pests is a necessary first step towards better understanding of crop health and its management. However, the information pertaining to the losses caused by plant diseases and pests in agriculture is fragmented, heterogeneous, and is very incomplete. Undertaking this survey is a project that has been considered for a long time. It has first been discussed by the Crop Loss Subject Matter Committee of the International Society of Plant Pathology during its first meeting in August 2013 in Beijing. Documenting the importance of crop diseases and pests is also one goal of several international research networks, such as AgMiP and MacSur.
Very simplified information is being sought, so it shouldn’t take long. You have until 31 January. The results should be useful in setting breeding priorities, among other things.
You need to get to the next CBN Variety Showcase. It’s a mix of public plant breeders, independent breeders, and farmers doing both complex breeding and simple improvements on older heirlooms – each of whom is paired with a chef. Those who attend get to learn about the breeding process and goals, and then sample dishes crafted from the crops. For example, a pastry chef (Nora Antene from Tusk) made a “Corn Silk Pie” with sweet corn bred by Bill Tracy (in a participatory plant breeding project with a number of farmers). This wasn’t an actual pie made from corn silks (but hey, has anyone tried it?) but rather a pie in the texture and tradition of chocolate silk. It may have been the best thing I’ve eaten in life. Although the hulless pepito ice cream was pretty damn good.
That’s from a comment on a recent Nibble on the Culinary Breeding Network that we thought deserved a higher profile. There’s a video of the event too.
Oh, and sorry about the slow blogging lately. Lots of travelling around still to come too, alas.