Category: Cooking

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Nibbles: Restoration, Monitoring, CARDI, Margot Forde, Warwick, Slow Beans 2025, Lonicera

  1. Africa needs good forest seeds.
  2. And genetic monitoring of the resulting plantings, probably.
  3. The Caribbean also wants quality seed, and thinks a mobile seed bank is the way to get it.
  4. The only mobile things about New Zealand’s genebank are its collectors.
  5. A very mobile donation to the UK’s vegetable genebank.
  6. Nothing very mobile about Slow Beans 2025, but that’s the point.
  7. The long journey of honeysuckle.
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Nibbles: Fiona Hay, Richard Ellis, FAO exhibition, Peasants, Wheat breeding, Svalbard, Søren Ejlersen, Ephraim Bull, Heirloom apples, Caffeine, Collards history

  1. Dr Fiona Hay, seed scientist, on why we need genebanks, including seed banks.
  2. Prof. Richard Ellis retires. A genebank legend, as Fiona would probably agree.
  3. FAO exhibition goes From Seeds to Foods. By way of genebanks, no doubt.
  4. And peasants, of course. No, it’s not a derogatory word, settle down.
  5. Can Green Revolution breeding approaches (and genebanks) help peasants deal with climate change?
  6. Even genebanks need a back-up plan though.
  7. New Mexico genebank helps out Danish chef.
  8. The history of the Concord grape and its foxiness. Chefs intrigued.
  9. The history of Aport and Amasya apples. No foxiness involved, as far as I know. Genebanks? Probably.
  10. The origin of caffeine. Now do foxiness.
  11. Where did collards come from anyway? No, not genebanks. Bloody historians, always re-writing history.
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Nibbles: Impact assessment, Kenyan veggies, African veggie genebank, Madd fruit, Moroccan fruits, Date palm, DOGE at USDA

  1. Modelling adoption of biofortified crops is no substitute for empirical field surveys. Kind of obvious, but I guess needed saying.
  2. Kenyans may not need biofortified crops, though. Assuming they are actually eating their traditional vegetables.
  3. There’s a whole genebank for Africa’s vegetables.
  4. Saba senegalensis is also naturally biofortified.
  5. The High Atlas Foundation is also on a fruit tree mission
  6. Is the date palm the most important fruit tree in the world, though?
  7. I wonder what will happen to USDA’s fruit tree collections.
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Nibbles: COUSIN project, Breeding chat, Aardaker, Alternative beans, Grain amaranth, Iraqi seeds, Genebanks in peril

  1. The COUSIN project aims to conserve (trans situ, no less) and use crop wild relatives in Europe.
  2. That “use” part can be tough.
  3. But that doesn’t stop the fine people at Aardaia. At least where aardaker (Lathyrus tuberosus) is concerned.
  4. From alternative potatoes in the Netherlands to alternative beans in Indonesia. All in the cause of diversification.
  5. No need to find an alternative to amaranth in the American SW. Not with devoted chefs on the job.
  6. The Iraqi Seed Collective is taking seeds from American genebanks to that country’s diaspora in the US, and eventually back to Iraq itself. Maybe chefs will help.
  7. Good thing there are genebank backups, eh?