Climate change

July 9, 2012July 10, 2012

Bananas in Bogor: be there

Banana breeders — and others with an interest — are meeting in Bogor to discuss, er, banana breeding under the auspices, I believe, of Musanet and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. ((Can I find a link to the meeting? Can I heck.))

Our very own Luigi Guarino is there for his day job, tweeting up a storm at #musanet. They’re lucky to have him. And so are we. One fascinating idea already from Jim Lorenzen of IITA: resynthesize the banana. How cool would that be? ((Lorenzen doesn’t mention resynthesis in this recent blog post about breeding superior cooking bananas.))

LATER: This is not a new idea, as this extract on CIRAD’s work from a 2008 book shows.

July 9, 2012July 5, 2012

Brainfood: Red meat, Chocolate quality, Shea and livelihoods, Modeling extinction, Living collections, Sorghum & millet breeding, Hotspots, Ancient sesame, Breeding lovefest

Red meat in global nutrition. Not as bad as people say. But then the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association would say that, wouldn’t they.
Optimizing chocolate production through traceability: A review of the influence of farming practices on cocoa bean quality. Manufacturers really need data on how the crop was grown.
Contribution of “Women’s Gold” to West African Livelihoods: The Case of Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) in Burkina Faso. It is high, especially for the poorest households, for women, and when other sources of income are scarce.
Herbarium records do not predict rediscovery of presumed nationally extinct species. Fancy probabilistic models based on number of sightings in different time periods are pretty useless predictors of whether news of the demise of a species was exaggerated.
The importance of living botanical collections for plant biology and the “next generation” of evo-devo research. “Next generation” sequencing pretty useless without the actual plants in “last generation” genebanks and “first generation” botanical gardens/arboreta. Don’t believe me? Here come the vignettes.
Breeding Strategies for Adaptation of Pearl Millet and Sorghum to Climate Variability and Change in West Africa. Involve farmers, bank on diversity, support seed systems.
Plant species richness: the world records. They’re only found in oligo- to meso-trophic, managed, semi-natural, temperate grasslands and tropical rain forests.
Sesame Utilization in China: New Archaeobotanical Evidence from Xinjiang. 5kg of white sesame seeds in a nice jug at the Thousand Buddha Grottoes at Boziklik dating from ca. 700 years BP means the crop was, well, used at that time and place.
The twenty-first century, the century of plant breeding. Accentuate the positive.

July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

This is about climate, not diversity. But …

U.S. Daily Highest Max Temperature Records set on June 28, 2012

Temps

Out of a possible 5,752 records: 205 (Broken) + 74 (Tied) = 279 Total

Just the facts, Ma’am.

July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

Nibbles: Climate predictions, Melon sequenced, Banana adoption, CRP networking, Supply chains, NUS value chains, Climate change good

Rave from the grave… If the endless summer don’t get you, the nuclear winter still will.
To him that hath… Spaniards bag Euro cup and their first DNA sequence: melon.
Build a better banana… And you still need to persuade farmers to beat a path to your door.
Well, maybe a Facebook page will help: roots, tubers and bananas go social.
Oxfam advice on protecting your supply chains from endless summers and nuclear winters.
Which might be useful for this training course. But are value chains the same as supply chains?
Or it might not.

June 26, 2012June 26, 2012

Nibbles: Agroforestry award, Medieval agrobiodiversity, Agricultural R&D, Fermentation, Climate-smart agriculture, Drought, Aleurites moluccana, Language erosion, Sri Lanka, Livestock, Peas

My friend Zac bags a well-deserved award.
Agricultural diversity in the Middle Ages: squirrels and cotton. And there’s probably more where those came from…
Keeping score on agricultural research spending.
Fermentables interview.
What does this climate-smart agriculture look like anyway?
And do they ever need it in the American midwest.
And what in blazes is candlenut?
A tool for documenting endangered languages. Maybe endangered landraces or crops one day too…
Documented: One Sri Lankan farmer’s thoughts on sustainable agriculture.
Not to mention the plusses and minuses of livestock — straight from the horse’s mouth.
And the myth that will not die: King Tut’s peas alive and thriving. Kudos to Jackson Holtz, a properly skeptical reporter.