Breeding

May 22, 2011May 22, 2011

Organic breeding conferences

The European Consortium for Organic Plant Breeding (ECO-PB) has announced two up-coming meetings. One is dedicated to the European organic seed regime and the other one is a celebration of ECO-PB’s 10 year anniversary.

The Workshop on Organic Seed Regulation will take place at The Organic Research Centre near Newbury in England on 21-22 September 2011.

The 10-year shindig is scheduled for 3-4 November 2011 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. That one has a call for papers, due by 15 June 2011.

ECO-PB is having a little trouble making the documents available at its website. As a service, here they are.

If you go, consider blogging for us.

May 22, 2011May 23, 2011

Nibbles: Chemical life, Cacao disease, Clove disease, Ag value addition

The old go-intensive-so-we-don’t-have-to-plough-up-Nature-for-more-farmland argument rears its beautiful head again.
Frosty pod rot comes to Latin America’s cacao, but CATIE has the varieties.
But clove is not so lucky.
Value addition, the Kenyan way.

May 19, 2011

Nibbles: Canids, Pea, Cacao, Scallops

Dogs are different from wolves, different types of wolves are different from each other.
Vavilov-Frankel Fellow on the move.
Nacional cacao bean rediscovered in northern Peru.
Manx Queenies deemed to be sustainable. And wipe that smile off your face.

May 18, 2011

Yes! We do have bananas

Almost a week ago we reported on the fabulous news that bananas, and especially the threat posed by a virulent new race of Fusarium wilt (better known as Panama disease) ¹ had featured on BBC’s The One Show. That show, alas, is not available outside the UK without some very fancy jiggery pokery, which hoops everyone who wanted to see it would have had to jump through for themselves. ² So, in a spirit of sharing and collective action for agrobiodiversity, we assembled a crack team of hoop-jumpers and did the jiggery pokery for you.

Here you go: Restaurant critic and all around good guy Jay Rayner comes to grips with the threat to bananas, aided and abetted by Pat Heslop Harrison, whose blog post on the subject we refer you to once again, just in case you want more on the topic than The One Show offered.

Was it worth it? Of course it was.

May 17, 2011May 17, 2011

Nibbles, Menu edition: Garlic, Potatoes, Meat, Tomatoes, Ramps, Bananas, Chocolate, Coffee, Pepper breeding, Local cattle in RSA

Chicago, Chicago, it’s an edible town. Major urban centre named for edible wild species shock.
Drought-resistant potatoes! At least 1000 genes involved.
Test-tube burgers? ³
Wild tomatoes and climate change. A meeting round-up from our chums at CIAT.
The appeal of fair trade bananas. A good read.
Technical Guidelines on the Safe Movement of Cacao Germplasm updated.
Coffee, please. A cup of your finest specialty variety.
Caribbean pepper breeders getting hot under the collar.
Gotta love the way Farm Radio Weekly not only has great stories about agrobiodiversity, but also handy background notes.

Well, that was fun.