- It was Apple Day in the UK yesterday; here’s a decent account.
- The origin of the peanut; an account you may be able to understand.
- An amazing online seed finder: only in America.
Brainfood: Italian almonds, Bamboo in Europe, Ethiopian barley, Cryo bird balls, Finnish cattle products, Adaptation strategies, Soil microbes, RSA droughty SP, Livestock integration
- Genetic diversity and relationships among Italian and foreign almond germplasm as revealed by microsatellite markers. I hate it when abstracts of paywalled papers don’t really tell you anything of any use.
- Bamboo as a Crop in Western Europe – a SWOT Analysis. Yeah that’s not going to happen.
- Phenotypic Diversity for Qualitative Characters of Barley (Hordeum vulgare (L.)) Landrace Collections from Southern Ethiopia. Need to focus conservation on Dawro, Sheka, Gamgofa and Keffa and across altitudes. I can’t believe we didn’t already know that but, unlike with the Italian almonds, at least this bit of potentially useful information is in the abstract. And the paper is free.
- Cryoconservation of avian gonads in Canada. And why not.
- Consumers as Conservers—Could Consumers’ Interest in a Specialty Product Help to Preserve Endangered Finncattle? Yes, if the consumers are green male carnivores. But then I could probably have told you that.
- What Influences Farmers’ Choice of Indigenous Adaptation Strategies for Agrobiodiversity Loss in Northern Ghana? Well, if I read this right, it is whether they have a radio, off-farm income and access to extension. But the math is complicated.
- Does agricultural crop diversity enhance soil microbial biomass and organic matter dynamics? A meta-analysis. They mean rotations, and the answer is yes.
- Evaluation of selected sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas) accessions for drought tolerance. Gotta love it when a genebank gets some use and a student gets a degree.
- Integrated crop–livestock systems: Strategies to achieve synergy between agricultural production and environmental quality. Livestock are the key to ecologically sustainable intensification. But then they would say that, wouldn’t they.
Nibbles: Oca, Tasmanian Potatoes, Pasture diversity, Training for NUS, Kales
- There are still people who think oca is a kind of potato. After all we’ve done for them.
- And speaking of New Zealand Yams, here’s an old article about Tasmanian boutique potatoes.
- Pasture diversity for animal welfare and profit
- Young scientist in sub-Saharan Africa? Get trained on aspects of neglected and underutilized species.
- So you thought kale was an ancient veggie? Think again. NYT features kale innovators.
Nibbles: Giant Pumpkin, Seed Saving
- Object Analysis of the Giant Pumpkin. Just in time for Halloween, obviously.
- The Need to Save Seeds is a Bad Sign. Because it means you’re not using great seed that’s worth paying for. Listen, we just link to this stuff, OK?
Nibbles: Frogs, Spuds, Apples, Cucumbers, Tosh?
- Take that, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys. England boasts oldest eaten anuran legs.
- Ban potatoes NOW! You know it makes sense.
- As American as industrially harvested, intellectually protected apples.
- Step aside Golden Rice; the Golden Cucumber is just over the horizon. That and much more from deep re-sequencing.
- Also just over the horizon, hordes of new, public domain banana varieties, although they don’t actually own the domain the video points to. Oops. h/t Bifurcated Carrots.