Breeding

June 28, 2015

Saluting Edmond Albius

By the late 18th century, a ton of Mexican vanilla was worth … “its weight in silver.”

That’s just one of the fun facts I learned from Robert Krulwich’s rendering of the bittersweet story of the slave boy on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion who discovered how to manually pollinate vanilla. Or did he? Well, that’s the point of the story. If you read the whole thing over at National Geographic’s blogs, you also get the benefit of some really charming drawings.

June 26, 2015June 26, 2015

Nibbles: AVRDC genebank, Grits, Sikhs & parmesan, Congolese gouda, New rice, Poisonous plants, Bush tucker, Co-evolution, Amazonian medicinals, Native American usufruct

World Vegetable Centre looking for a genebank manager.
What’s a grit?
Who did you say saved parmesan? Who did you say is making gouda?
Philippines gets some new rice varieties. No, but these are climate-resilient.
A poisonous plants gardens fits perfectly with my mood today.
Involve native people in the development of a native foods industry. Well, duh.
Blame butterflies for broccoli.
There are a lot of medicinal plants in the Amazon.
Wild rice (wild but not rice) vs pipeline.

June 23, 2015June 23, 2015

Nibbles: Pope, CGIAR, Agroecology, ABS, Food shortage, World flora, Nutella, Bees, GMOs, CC & wheat, CC & legumes, EU satellite, Seed saving, Wheat breeding, Strawberry breeding, Adopt-a-crop, Organic tea, Malagasy yams, Seed app, Ebola seeds, Sorghum spoons

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.

June 8, 2015June 16, 2015

Brainfood: Eastern promise, Biodiversity databases, Pulse carotenoids, Castor oil breeding, Maya beans, NUS and water, Chinese Vitis

An ethnobotanical perspective on traditional fermented plant foods and beverages in Eastern Europe. 116 taxa, with a preponderance of Rosaceae.
Estimating species diversity and distribution in the era of Big Data: to what extent can we trust public databases? Trust, but verify.
Genetic diversity of nutritionally important carotenoids in 94 pea and 121 chickpea accessions. There’s carotenoid diversity in the Canadian collections.
Role of conventional and biotechnological approaches in genetic improvement of castor (Ricinus communis L.). We have the technology. What we don’t have is results.
Phaseolus from Cerén—A Late Classic Maya Site. The wilds were also eaten.
The Potential Role of Neglected and Underutilised Crop Species as Future Crops under Water Scarce Conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some neglected species may be somewhat adapted to low water conditions, perhaps.
The wild relatives of grape in China: Diversity, conservation gaps and impact of climate change. 15 of 39 species need help, especially as the range of many is expected to be reduced by climate change.

June 4, 2015June 4, 2015

Nibbles: EU meet, Green cities, Gates strategy, Indigenous hunger, Niche coffee, Salinity, Botany rules, Pollinator evidence, Sacred cows, Coke bottles

A couple of EU DGs discuss farming for diversity, maybe even diversity in farming?
They recently heard about urban farming from FAO, which might help. Oh no, wait, that’s a different DG.
Gates Foundation doubles down on nutrition, nice to see agriculture in the mix too.
Meanwhile, efforts are underway to measure the food security of indigenous people in better ways, so that we can figure out whether things like the above are actually working.
Sourcing high quality coffee. I think we can all get behind that goal.
Deconstructing salt tolerance in chickpea.
Botany has an image problem. No, really?
Fact-checking pollinator decline.
Only local cows for Haryana. Seems extreme? Well, Michigan not above doing the same.
Coca-Cola has plant-based bottles. Now to embed some seeds in them.
Maybe Swedish vegetable seeds. Do they have Coke in Sweden?