- Attention, francophones! Quels indicateurs pour suivre la diversité génétique des plantes cultivées? Le cas du blé tendre cultivé en France depuis un siècle.
- Et un colloque on how genetic resources respond to new environmental, economic and societal issues.
- Award for Kenyan vegetable enthusiast Prof. Mary Abukutsa.
- An in-depth look at land-sharing versus land sparing.
- “The age of the ‘mega-varieties’ [of rice] may be over.” Say it isn’t so, Joe!
- What to do with tomatillos, apart from salsa, that is.
- What to do with ancient walnuts, or rather, walnut tree forests. Save them, obviously.
Nibbles: Rice biofortification, Wild walnuts, Himalayan agriculture, Eating invasives, Gissen on wine, Medicinal fungus, Soil initiative, Ag development in S Sudan, AVRDC and WorldFish, Value chains
- Boffins to rice: Pump it Up!
- Saving the nuts of Central Asia.
- Nepali women abandon hybrids for landraces and community seedbanks. Weird thing is that it’s a WWF project. But where are the extensionists? If only they had listened in Bhutan. Ok that packed a lot of links in there.
- Never saw an invasive I didn’t like.
- Architectural theorist tackles wine. Not many people hurt.
- Turns out 57 insect species can play host to that famous medicinal fungus that led to war between Tibetan communities a couple of years back. Which helps how?
- An envelope is opened at FAO.
- Seeds come to South Sudan. One hopes they are of the right kinds. And that somebody is collecting what was there before. Maybe someone should call WWF.
- You want vegetables with your fish?
- Crops for the Future says not all middlemen bad.
Nibbles: IRRI, Palestinian genebanks, Non-dairy ice-cream, Community genebanks, Goat racing, Millions Fed, Seed relief, Gametophytic incompatibilityd, Seed relief, Beer
- IRRI working to adapt rice to climate change, thanks to genebank.
- Palestine gets a genebank. And genebankers, thanks to ICARDA.
- Lupin ice-cream. Sounds yummie.
- Ethio Organic Seed Action “trains farmers in the use of traditional seeds.” I doubt it, but the stuff on community genebanks is nice.
- Goat racing in Uganda. Where are the photos?
- IFPRI publishes companion volume to Millions Fed.
- Vouching for seed vouchers.
- Breeding anti-GMO maize. Well, kinda.
- “Beer could provide lifeline for South Sudan’s small farmers.” I know how they feel.
Brainfood: Community forestry, Chinese Paleolithic, Peanut wild relatives, Pepper taxonomy, Fruit tree domestication, Allelopathy, Olive evaluation
- Back to basics: Considerations in evaluating the outcomes of community forestry. You don’t need fancy indicators.
- Plant exploitation of the last foragers at Shizitan in the Middle Yellow River Valley China: Evidence from grinding stones. Remains of starch and patterns of wear on grinding stones show that Paleolithic people in China used a lot of plants, in a lot of ways.
- Phenotypic diversity and identification of wild Arachis accessions with useful agronomic and nutritional traits. Our friends at ICRISAT identify the top 20 wild peanut accessions.
- Taxonomy and genetic diversity of domesticated Capsicum species in the Andean region. AFLPs and SSRs clarify some taxonomic issues, but show high diversity not just in Bolivia, the putative centre of origin. No top 20 though.
- From forest to field: Perennial fruit crop domestication. They’re like annuals in some respects, different in others. Perhaps most interestingly, their domestication bottleneck wasn’t so much of one.
- Allelopathic potential of Triticum spp., Secale spp. and Triticosecale spp. and use of chromosome substitutions and translocations to improve weed suppression ability in winter wheat. Low in wheat, but high in some rye accessions, and transferrable.
- Genotyping and evaluation of local olive varieties of a climatically disfavoured region through molecular, morphological and oil quality parameters. Eight minor varieties could be less so.
Nibbles: Refugia, Mann, Tree pix, Sparing v sharing, Lethal yellowing, Value chains, Coral sun-blocking, GlobalHort, Gravenstein, Pirate agrobiodiversity
- How species survive climate change.
- Charles C. Mann, author of great books on pre-Columbian America and the consequences of the Columbian Exchange, interviewed.
- Dreamy pictures of old British trees.
- “Protecting wild species may require growing more food on less land.” Great press release headlines of our times. Fortunately Mongabay has a discussion.
- Coconut lethal yellowing wreaking havoc in Mozambique.
- What makes a good food value chain?
- Boffins want to re-activate coral genes in temperate plants to stop them getting sunstroke. Or something.
- Old friend engaged by GlobalHort to work on position paper on “Promoting Agrobiodiversity for International Development: A Rationale and Roadmap for Collective Action”. Go, Hannah.
- Grapes vs apples in Sonoma County.
- Aaargh, pirates smoked like chimneys and drank like fish. Well I never. Anyway, nice to see them making full use of the local agrobiodiversity products.