Breeding

February 1, 2012February 1, 2012

Maize breeder retires

“Never have so many people who plant and consume maize, now and in the future, owed so much to a single person…We value what you have accomplished and future generations of humans will be more food secure because of your service.”

Suketoshi Taba, breeder at CIMMYT, has retired. Awaiting the memoirs …

February 1, 2012February 1, 2012

Nibbles: Chillies, Catfish, Blight, Beef, Svalbard, Biofortification, Agriculture and health book, Ahipa, GBIF, Pacific grape and nuts, Cassava and marriage, Amazon, Lost genebanks, Vietnamese food, Yoghurt

Another use for chillies: keeping errant apes away.
Catfish are the new tilapia.
New fungicide-resistant strain of potato late blight found in UK. (How do they name these things?)
The chickenization of the US beef industry, on NPR. Salutary.
The Seed Warrior of Svalbard gets over-exposed.
What HarvestPlus is doing on each of its crops, in a handy brochure. And more on the same subject but a different crop from Bill Gates himself.
But that’s just one aspect of the relationship between agriculture and nutrition/health. Right? Right.
You also need dietary diversification, right? Right.
What’s that you say? Biodiversity databasing need not be hellish?
Danny waxes nostalgic about Wallis and Futuna grapes. He and I also met a few nuts in the Pacific in our time. Grape-nuts. Geddit?
Latest Plant Cuttings includes big piece on cassava.
And you can put that in an ecological context.
Do you have a forgotten germplasm collection?
Vietnam gets its first EU Geographic Indication. Can’t help thinking it need not have bothered.
Greek yoghurt, on the other hand…

January 31, 2012January 31, 2012

Nibbles: Landscapes, Ireland, Veitch’s, Purple tomato

Revitalising socio-ecological production landscapes. It’s all the buzz, even though it doesn’t trip off my tongue.
And the buzz keeps building for AgBioDiv 2012 in Ireland, 9 February.
The great house of Veitch — but not a word about their many veg varieties.
The first “really” purple tomato now available as seed.

January 30, 2012January 31, 2012

Nibbles: Microbial diversity, Blog, Yams, Benefits of diversity, Ancient ploughing, Oman’s genebank, Lodoicea, Wheat senescence, Maize landrace marketing, Setaria flowering, Prisoner yams, Eating weed

Microbiologist makes Guardians of Microbial Diversity award. Agromicrobes awaited.
Fabulous giant new superinteresting megablog scheduled to launch today. No RSS. ~~Yet?~~
Who likes which yams (by which they mean Dioscorea) in Madagascar? Kew will have answers.
Genetic diversity invades the zeitgeist, or something.
Or would you prefer something a little more down to earth?
Oldest ploughed fields in Czech lands.
Crazy mixed up report on this weeks new genebank, in ~~Oman~~ Qatar. “Up to 10,000 genes”? Be still my beating heart.
Ich bin ein coco-de-mer-nut.
Heat speeds up wheat aging. I know how it feels.
A “Starbucks Of Tortillas”? Sounds worse than it is.
Welcome news of fundamental work on a “minor” millet.
IITA goes to jail.
Genetically modifying cannabis to make it safe to eat. Such a bad idea. On so many levels.

January 27, 2012January 27, 2012

Nibbles: Blogs, Geographical Indicators, India, Benefits, Forest regeneration, Flypaper

My favorite agriculture blogs. Can you say “parochial”?
Want to track Geographical Indicators? Look no further.
India’s agriculture magazine tackles Agro-Biodiversity For Food Security.
And GFAR promotes a new initiative to realise the benefits of agrobiodiversity. Love is all around.
National Plant Genetics Resources Laboratory (NPGRL) at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños checks in to rehab.
Bioversity scientist plays with fire, for better and more diverse forest regeneration.
Mutation breeding; Matt explains the lack of breakthroughs in a bit more detail.
Fabulous, complex story of spiders, flies and microbes. Add ’em together for green flypaper.