Nibbles: Svalbard Global Seed Vault, CePaCT genebank, CIAT genebank, Australia rice genebank, Bangladesh genebank, Maize mutants garden, Inoculants genebank, Millets community seedbank, Payments for Agrobiodiversity Conservation Services, Triadic Comparison of Technology Options, Crop diversity, Intercropping, Agroforestry, Diet diversity, World economy, Sustainable food

  1. Never thought I’d see the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Psychology Today, yet here we are.
  2. The Pacific’s regional genebank is set for more work on lesser-known crops. Too bad most of them won’t be able to go to Svalbard.
  3. How to make a genebank beautiful as well as sustainable.
  4. Australia has a rice genebank. For some reason.
  5. Bangladesh gets a new genebank. Could have sworn it already had one.
  6. Mutants need a genebank too.
  7. And inoculants.
  8. Community-level genebanks have their place too. Though probably not for mutants.
  9. As long as the farmers get a benefit, of course.
  10. Tricot is a good way of evaluating all that stuff in genebanks.
  11. But you should also genotype it.
  12. Why bother with all this? Andreas Volz has a nice explanation.
  13. Genetic diversity is all very good, but don’t forget to intercrop.
  14. Which includes agroforestry.
  15. For a more varied diet.
  16. And a better world economy.
  17. And a more sustainable food system.

Brainfood: Ag research ROI, CGIAR & climate change, Crop species diversity, Training plant breeders, AI & plant breeding, Wheat breeding review, Wheat landraces, CIMMYT wheat breeding, Wheat D genome, Forages pre-breeding, Impact of new varieties, Two long-term barley experiment, High protein peas, Watermelon super-pangenome, Resynthesizing mustard, Consumer preference and breeding

Nibbles: Cropscapes, Ecuador cacao, Nigerian yams, Lima bean show, Mesopotamian cooking, Nepal seed banks, RNA integrity, China genebanks, Cryo comics, Greening

  1. The authors of book “Moving Crops and the Scales of History” have been awarded the Edelstein Prize 2024 for their work to “redefine historical inquiry based on the ‘cropscape’: the assemblage of people, places, creatures, technologies, and other elements that form around a crop.” Let’s see how many cropscapes we can come up with today.
  2. Here’s one. The Ecuador cacao genebank gets some much-needed help.
  3. Digging into Nigerian yams. And another.
  4. Castle Hex has a programme on Lima beans on 7-8 September. Sounds like fun.
  5. What if you can’t work out what the crops are, though? As in Mesopotamian recipe books, for example.
  6. The community seed banks of Nepal have a new website. Good news for those Nepalese cropscapes.
  7. A new project is testing RNA integrity number (RIN) as a metric of seed aging for a bunch of rare wild plants. One day maybe community seed banks will be using it.
  8. China has inventoried its agricultural germplasm. Will it be applying RIN next?
  9. The French are using bandes dessinées to teach about cryopreservation of animal genetic resources. Livestockscapes?
  10. Some drylands are getting greener and some people think that’s a problem. Always something.

Nibbles: SeedLinked, Heritage Seed Library, HarvestPlus, Enset, EBI, Saharan/Sahelian flora, Pollen, Food & climate, Food prices, Moonraker, Svalbard eats, Devex does seeds, CGRFA ABS survey

  1. SeedLinked: an app to source cool vegetable seeds. And more.
  2. Want to become a variety champion for the Heritage Seed Library? Where’s the app though?
  3. A compendium of evidence on the efficacy of biofortification from HarvestPlus. Jeremy surely available for comment?
  4. Kew celebrates efficacy of enset conservation in Ethiopia.
  5. Not sure if the Ethiopia Biodiversity Institute is in on that celebration.
  6. Some of Ethiopia is Sahelian, no? Anyway, here’s a nice piece on the forgotten, but important plants from that neck of the woods.
  7. We should all celebrate pollen banking much more.
  8. Celebrity chef worried about the effect of climate change on food.
  9. Including food prices. I dunno, maybe pollen banking will help.
  10. Or maybe even a lunar repository.
  11. Speaking of food prices, I bet this Svalbard restaurant is not cheap. Maybe there’s a nice view of the Seed Vault though. Who needs the moon?
  12. The latest Devex newsletter has lots of stuff on food prices and prizes and (non-lunar) seed vaults.
  13. Do you use any of the above for research and development? The FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture would like to hear from you.

Nibbles: SPAM2020, Pullman genebank, Svalbard, Olive plague, Rice diversity, Vanilla threat, Gum rockrose, VACS demand, AI double, Food & climate change

  1. The latest version of the SPAM global crop area distribution model is out. You can play with it here.
  2. Some bullet points on the USDA’s National Plant Germplasm System outpost in Pullman.
  3. Yes, the above references Svalbard, as does this piece on Spanish tomatoes.
  4. Pity we can’t put olives in Svalbard, but there’s a another way to protect olive diversity.
  5. A breakdown of rice colour diversity. A lot of this stuff will be in Svalbard, with any luck.
  6. Vanilla will also need attention.
  7. But gum rockrose seems to be taken care of, at least in Bulgaria. It’s what you make Holy Chrism with.
  8. So there’s bound to be demand for it, at least in some quarters. Unlike for other opportunity/orphan/neglected crops, but GAIN is on it.
  9. And if all else fails there’s always AI, be it to fight pests and diseases or find cool plants out in the jungle.
  10. Why does all this matter? Because of the climate F-word.