- The Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity has been up to something, but it is hard to be sure what.
- IRRI is also up to something — Green super rice — but again it is hard to be sure what. Not golden at any rate.
- CIAT picks its favourites from the State of the World 2011 report.
- More than anyone has any right to want to know about the history and future of agricultural experimentation, but fascinating nonetheless.
- The nutritive value and toxicity of grasspea and its relatives.
- Milk may or may not provide some protection from malaria.
- Nutrition advice, filtered for you. Jeremy sez “I like No. 6.”
- Irish launch crop wild relatives website.
- The feed quality of crop residues gets the treatment.
The Genomics of Genebanks Workshop at PAG deconstructed
Greg Baute has a post up at his blog on the Genomics of Genebanks Workshop held last week at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference. Interesting observations on core collections, comparing past genebank collections to current diversity in the field, and the role of crop wild relatives in breeding. I particularly liked Cameron Peace’s advice on how to get the most from collections of wild relatives of fruit trees. Maybe we’ll hear more about that at Davis in March.
Nibbles: Squash etc, Potatoes, Economics, Pharaonic palm, goats, Chickpea
- Native American eating “best museum cafeteria in town”. “Makes up for the museum,” sniffs Jeremy
- Catalog of advanced clones and improved varieties going like hot potatoes.
- The Economic Impact of Bioversity is apparently “a seriously problem-rich, solution-craving topic”. Innovation Investment Journal says so.
- Pharaonic palm not immortal. Medemia argun “critically endangered”.
- Goat lineage diversity delineated. Paywalled.
- Chickpea diversity includes variability in resistance to salinity. Paywalled.
Nibbles: Iron, Nepal, Livestock, Rats, Kew, Wheat, Carbon
- Iron-rich potatoes: from genebanks to “improving health in poor communities”.
- Agricultural intensification in Nepal; positive impacts vs “potential negative implications”. Via.
- Stray livestock wreak havoc in Sri Lanka. h/t CIAT.
- New book on “ecologically based rodent management”. Rodents say: “Rats!”
- Kew Director looks forward to 2011.
- More on North America’s wonderful wheat breeders and their ability to weather climate change.
- Plantations more profitable than pasture in Queensland — in a model that includes $4.4/tonne of carbon sequestration.
More on participatory breeding
Speaking of different approaches to breeding, one of the speakers at last year’s tri-societies meeting in Long Beach, California, sent me a link to the session on Participatory Plant Breeding for Food Security and Conservation of Agrobiodiversity. 1 This is very cool technology; given a reasonable internet connection you can hear the talks — and watch the slides, if you’re so minded — of six of the speakers. I listened to the first talk, by Cal Qualset, and the quality is excellent. I must try to find time for the others over the next few days.