- There are some really old breweries out there.
- And some really old grape seeds in Sardinia.
- The beauty of hops. New and old.
- Some very photogenic old sheep breeds in the Lake District.
- Someone has discovered some old salt-tolerant rice landraces. Also medicinal and aromatic rices. Well I never.
- Meanwhile, at the other end of the rainbow, the Chinese dip a toe into gourmet GM rice.
- Brit boffins breed flood-proof barley.
- Botanical gin. Two of my favourite things, combined.
- Saving the Pau Brasil is, well, complicated. But what else was it going to be?
- Yet another roundup of the pros and cons of quinoa.
Brainfood: Cassava descriptors, Core collections, Oat breeding, Indigenous fruits, Sandalwood in Fiji, Eggplant diversity treble, Globally important mushrooms, High amylose rice, Chickpea diversity, Finger millet diversity, Lethal yellowing, Spanish peppers, Local potato experts
- Selection of the most informative morphoagronomic descriptors for cassava germplasm. From 51 to 32. Hardly seems worth it. And dropping descriptors can be dangerous.
- Advances in core collection of plant germplasm resources. In Chinese, alas, but it sounds intriguing.
- Trends in breeding oat for nutritional grain quality – An overview. You want high β-glucan, and you can get it by breeding for high yield, luckily. A. atlantica has high β-glucan.
- Indigenous Fruit Trees of Tropical Africa: Status, Opportunity for Development and Biodiversity Management. Need for “exploiting the under-tapped treasuries of IFT.” Still? People have been saying that for years. They’ve even designated agroforestry systems as globally important and everything.
- Promoting Santalum yasi Seeman (Sandalwood or yasi) in agroforestry systems to reverse agrodeforestation in Fiji. An attempt to introduce a high value species into a threatened agroforestry system. Not just fruit, then.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of wild/weedy eggplant (Solanum insanum, Solanaceae) in southern India: Implications for conservation. Quite a lot of geneflow.
- The potential for crop to wild hybridization in eggplant (Solanum melongena; Solanaceae) in southern India. Transgenes from the crop could spread to the wild relative.
- Variation in Antioxidant Activity and Flavonoid Aglycones in Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) Germplasm. So, the leaves are good for you. But I suspect they taste like crap.
- The Qingyuan Mushroom Culture System as Agricultural Heritage. Would pay money to see that.
- Selecting High Amylose Rice Germplasm Combined with NIR Spectroscopy at the RDA Genebank Conserved. From 9481 to 14 with high amylose and decent agronomy. But why bother?
- Field response of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) to high temperature. There are some heat tolerant lines in the ICRISAT genebank.
- Genetic diversity in East African finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn) landraces based on SSR markers and some qualitative traits. The diversity is high, mainly within countries, and missing from the ICRISAT minicore. Naughty.
- Analyses based on the 16S rRNA and secA genes identify a new phytoplasma subgroup associated with a lethal yellowing-type disease of coconut in Côte d’Ivoire. The international genebank is threatened.
- New Insights into Capsicum spp Relatedness and the Diversification Process of Capsicum annuum in Spain. Limited genetic diversity has differentiated in Spain into pungent, elongated peppers in the South and Center, and sweet, blocky and triangular types in the North.
- Knowing native potatoes: finding local experts through innovative methods in the Peruvian Andes. Community Biodiversity Register methodology applied to potato landraces. Don’t see anything much new here, but good to have it nicely documented.
Nibbles: Taro recipes, Pawpaw Kickstarter, Pica, Slow seeds, Forest foods, Pork rises, Landscapes, Best friend, Cooking & CC
- Ok, now you have no excuse not to eat taro.
- Do your bit to help pawpaws (Asimina triloba) go viral. No, wait, that didn’t come out right.
- “Pica is an unexplainable food curiosity—the overwhelming desire to eat the inedible.” Or, as we say in my house, German food.
- Tuscan seed journey.
- Living off forest foods can be fun.
- Pork beats beef.
- Picturing the Earth. Some of it ain’t pretty. But even then it’s pretty.
- Picturing working dogs. All of them pretty.
- Kenyan chef Ali L’artiste tucks into Rwandan bananas and beans before it’s too late.
Nibbles: History of beer, St Bridget, Gaulish bread, Ancient cocktails, PGR course, ECHO, Breakfast pix, Development vs biodiversity, Fairtrade African veggies, Indian medicinals, Phytoliths, CC adaptation
- I say ale, you say beer.
- Ireland has a patron saint of beer. Well of course it does.
- The bread of the Gauls was made from beer foam.
- Reviving ancient beers. Wait, what’s with all this beer today?
- Genetic Resources in Plant Breeding: Conservation, Characterization and Utilization, 17-28 August 2015, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Alnarp, Sweden: More detailed information on this course coming soon…
- Not that these guys in Florida need it.
- Pix of kids’ breakfasts from around the world.
- Development and biodiversity can coexist: here come the data.
- African leafy veggies have truly arrived, haven’t they, if they’re getting the Fairtrade treatment.
- But it might be too late for some medicinal plants.
- Phytoliths 101.
- What’s that you say? You want to integrate agrobiodiversity in your climate adaptation plans? Got just the thing for you.
Nibbles: FAO Commission, Private genebank, DivSeek duo, Biofortified sorghum, African supermarkets, Enset, Health crops, Breadfruit conference, Denison podcast, Saving chocolate, Paramo app, CIMMYT genebank video, Pig milk
- FAO says genes are good for climate.
- India’s first private sector genebank established.
- Well, at least one person is really excited about DivSeek.
- And one major journal.
- DuPont video on increasing sorghum Fe and Zn levels in Africa.
- Will they sell it through local vendors or supermarkets?
- Let them eat enset. Which is not, however, on this list of today’s top healthy crops.
- Neither is breadfruit, but that shouldn’t stop you going to this conference in Trinidad.
- Ford Denison writes about his appearance on Eat This Podcast.
- Enough with the scary chocolate stories already.
- Here, go play with this app about the flora of the paramo from Missouri Botanical Garden.
- The CIMMYT genebank in the news.
- Pig milk in your tea, vicar?