- Seven forest myths exposed. And more on the work debunking one of them. Yeah I know we already Nibbled it, get over it.
- And you know what, here’s another one we already Nibbled, on collecting seeds in Central Asia. But I just read it again in the hardcopy version and it’s really cool and I like seeing people I know in funny shorts. Incidentally, the dead tree version has a link to Vaviblog that is unaccountably missing online.
- Will no one buy me this fabulous banana book? (Not if you keep being rude to your reader. Ed.)
- Second installment of that we-farm-because-we-like-beer thing. I’m not sure about the theory, but I like the way this guy writes. Yes, it’s a little look at me, look at me. But sometimes you need that.
- Tales of the cucumber. Does anyone remember if we blogged about this paper?
- More to myrrh than meets the eye. And more than most folk need to know.
- Oxford boffins say a pox on both your houses: “environmentally friendly” farms better than conventional and organic.
- National Geographic tackles the dog. Amazingly, all the photos are of, ahem, dogs.
- What’s with all this stuff about cacao lately? Has someone sequenced another variety or something?
Cotton doyen passes away
Sad to hear that Dr Ed Percival, a world expert on cotton and its genetic resources, passed away last month. He collected wild and cultivated germplasm widely, and he was formerly curator of the USDA cotton germplasm collection at College Station, Texas, one of the more important in the world. 1
Nibbles: Mike Jackson blog, Philippines genebank fire, Ancient garden, USA maps, Horse domestication, Gnats, Livestock training, Chocolate, Epigenetics, Indian nutritional security, Kew fund, GM bananas, Reconciling databases
- Mike Jackson gets himself a pulpit. Welcome to the blogosphere, Mike!
- More on the Filipino ex-genebank.
- What they grew in an ancient Israelite garden. Can they really tell Citrus species apart from their pollen?
- More American maps to mashup with obesity and food insecurity: land use, renewable energy sources…. I do hope someone is keeping track. Even of the more esoteric stuff, of course, like the names of softdrinks.
- Yet more on horse domestication.
- Another organic farming externality for your consideration. Thanks, Robert.
- ILRI gets innovative on this whole training thing.
- “The future of chocolate” revealed.
- Boffins look at fossil bison epigenetics to investigate adaptation to climate change. What will they think of next. Well, applying it to chickens, for a start.
- Other boffins move potato anti-nematode genes into bananas. No word on the epigenetics of it all.
- Indian report on how to strengthen role of agriculture in nutrition.
- Kew has money for fieldwork.
- Cleaning messy taxonomic data. Useful in Genebank Database Hell?
Nibbles: French seed policy, Coconut, Diversity conservation
- Le droit de planter et cultiver librement bientôt interdit? Not new, still important. h/t @plgepts
- Or, if you prefer, “French farmers will have to pay to use their own seeds“.
- Philippine Coconut Authority promotes value of coconut variety Tutupaen tall for its thick shell.
- Payments for Agrobiodiversity Conservation. New Agriculturalist does Bioversity scientist Adam Drucker proud.
Nibbles: Sweet potato value adding, Coffee and tree diversity, Spice and girls
- Sweet potato yoghurt? Yeah, ok, why not.
- Decreasing coffee production in Kenya can reduce tree abundance and richness on farm, but increasing production will lead to more trees but not necessarily more diversity. No, I don’t get it either, but have a look at the data yourself and try to figure it out. There’s plenty of it in this presentation.
- Love of hot peppers as benign masochism. Myself I think it’s a sexual selection cue.