Breeding

Nibbles: Heat, Pastoralism, Yams, Caimito, Pavlovsk, Beans, Tomatoes, Trees, Grasslands, Rice in LAC, Fossil sunflower, Apples, Fish in Africa

Unpacking the heat of chillies.
Debating pastoralism, a new journal.
Celebrating (instead of growing?) yams.
Economic Botany releases free download of paper on caimito domestication.
More than 50,000 people care about Pavlovsk Experiment Station. Unstoppable?
A bean diversity fair was held in Uganda on the 21st of June 2010. Did we miss it then?
Searching for the Blue Zebra … tomato. Wonder if AVRDC know about it.
Those blogging diplomats — How to make a scarf from a tree.
Tibet’s disappearing grasslands. Pastoralists see item 2 above.
IRRI DG says, in Latin America, that Latin America could be next global rice bowl. Well, he would, wouldn’t he. Very data-heavy presentation.
One VERY remote sunflower wild relative. Very cool.
Chaffey’s regular words of wisdom on anything botanical. Well, mostly wise. But more on that later…
The history of the apple in the early US.
IUCN does for African freshwater fish what it does best. Ring the alarm bell.

Perennial fodder crops to the rescue.
Cool bird flu maps. GIS to the rescue.
Persistent malnutrition? We know how to fix it. That’s the tragedy. Meanwhile, let’s consult the e-atlas.
Cassava and potato to the rescue.
Orange+purple sweet potatoes to the rescue.

Celebrating the Irish Seed Savers Association celebrations. We had wanted to be there…
CAS-IP on how to “break” the Plumpy’nut patent.
Cattle wild relative seen for first time in 10 years. Well, by scientists anyway.
“Initiatives that merely codify cultural products without taking the social-organizational context into account risk becoming little more than ‘museums of production.'” Ouch.
Millet domestication pushed back in time.
Antioxidant properties of traditional wild Iberian leafy greens. Yes, I know, this medicalizes nutrition, but I thought it was interesting that these wild species are still used.
“…a trait of the diploid species, which apparently looks undesirable, might in fact be highly valuable for the improvement of amphidiploids…”
“Food? We don’t need no stinkin’ food,” say UN negotiators.
UK ambassador’s observations on agriculture in Ukraine. Love the contrast between 100 ha fields of sunflowers and the table groaning under home-grown fruit and vegetables.
In other news, the UK’s ambassador to Ukraine has a blog. And so do a number of others. Sorely tempted to subscribe to their RSS.

How is Europe doing at saving its threatened plants? Paper and website available. How many crop wild relatives are threatened in Europe? I think it should be possible to work it out…
Bioversity colleagues summarize their work on homegardens.
Introduced plants can be useful too!
Soil Association continues to quibble about need to double food supply.
ICARDA looks for heat-beating wheat.
“Coconut Biodiversity for Prosperity” meet coming up soon in Kerala. Local press excited.
Jeremy sets the world straight on Pavlovsk.
Kew et al. set the world straight on how many plants there are in the world. Jury still out on the number of crop wild relatives.
Vulnerability of vegetation to climate change varies around the world. Well there’s a thing now. Nice maps.
If you’re running a livestock cryobank I’ve got the software for you.