- Indian academics voice some reservations about CBD ABS regime. Maybe a multilateral approach would be better?
- CIAT warns about climate change effect on crops. Kenyan farmers know all about that. And Koreans too. Oh, and speaking of kimchi…
- Beer proteome means better beer. Fundamental research indeed.
- Cattle breeds are real. And the gaur?
- Nepal inaugurates genebank.
- San benefit from bioprospecting license for medicinal plant.
- Ahmed Djoghlaf says…
- Weeds? Not weeds. Cities as biodiversity hotspots? Oh I give up.
- Orange cassava due to one amino acid.
Climate change winners and losers in Europe: the story so far
A recent paper in Agricultural Systems looks at what’s happened to the potential yields of eight crops (winter wheat, spring barley, maize, winter rapeseed, potato, sugar beet, pulses and sunflower) in Europe from 1976 to 2005. Italy and central and eastern Europe have been the big losers (left), probably due to higher temperature increases, sometimes in combination with lower radiation values.
And the British Islands have been the big winners (right), due to to longer period during which temperature is optimum for CO2 assimilation, sometimes in combination with higher radiation levels. That, of course, cannot last forever, though.
Nibbles:Collecting missions, Grapes, Beans, Genome, Local markets, Water
- From GBDBH, a light glimmers: browse and search records of crop collecting missions.
- “Variations in early-season temperatures may alter substantially grapevine yield formation.” For Cab Sauv at any rate.
- Mixture of beans as good as resistant variety against anthracnose disease.
- Genome inversion spurs ecotypic differentiation.
- A review of medicinal plant markets.
- Today’s huge global dataset: “threats to human water security and freshwater biodiversity in global river systems.”
Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Baobab hybridization, Jackfruit, Vavilovia, Cowpea education, Lead, Bees, Banana wilt, Dariy cows, Pavlovsk, Drylands, School gardens, Genetic diversity in botanic gardens
- The value of Pavlovsk. Jeremy delivers a slap.
- CIRAD on kinky sex among the baobabs.
- “I had never heard that there were distinct varieties of the jackfruit, although of course such a thing was reasonable, so I naturally wanted very much to taste one.” Naturally.
- Wild relative of pea gets a weird hybrid in-ex situ conservation treatment.
- A Cowpea Story, an illustrative children’s book by Vicky Inniss-Palmer, tells the hopeful story of a cowpea named Catalina and her struggle to overcome illness and disease with the help of scientists. Meanwhile, scientists meet.
- Urban gardeners, beware lead. And nurture your pollinators.
- Reading this, anyone would think nobody had ever researched banana Xanthomonas wilt.
- Improved dairying in Kenya.
- Vavilov Institute’s comprehensive update on Pavlovsk.
- ICRISAT to put in place new market-oriented strategy which will use a “systems perspective in setting our priorities to ensure that all important issues along the dryland agriculture value chain are addressed.”
- Meanwhile, ASARECA asks for ideas on how to intensify one of those dryland systems in the face of climate change.
- ICIMOD promotes herbal gardens in schools.
- Botanic gardens get wrists slapped over their inattention to genetics.
Nibbles: Carnival, Local food, Rice, Yacon, Coffee
- Science for the People blog carnival is up, answering questions.
- How fashion turns the local glamorous, exotic and desirable — foods edition.
- Sub-1 rice gene takes over local varieties, changes nothing except flood tolerance.
- Rhizowen may be suffering from inadvertent introgression, in his yacon.
- New variety — just the one — resistant to coffee berry rust and leaf rust released in Kenya.