- From börek to burricche.
- The mother of Georgian cheese. I’m sure they have their version of börek there too. If not, there’s always bread.
- Fancy StoryMap of global livestock production. No wonder there’s lots of cheese in Georgia.
- Bringing back rare Welsh oats. Well, someone has to…
- A short history of cinnamon. Does it go with börek?
- Beautiful apples. And some so ugly they are beautiful.
- Crowd-sourcing Physalis improvement. Very tempting.
- How to conserve in vitro and in cryo. Useful for the three things above, for example.
Nibbles: USDA maize genebank, Apple breeding, Seed conservation, Soil map, Scoring supermarkets, DNA barcoding, Stone Age Hypoxis, Hybrid wine, Lost crops, Boswellia, Leucokaso, Species mixtures
- Nice student video on the genebank and breeding programmes at Iowa State.
- Speaking of breeding programmes and videos, here’s Sean Myles on his work on apples in Canada.
- Seed conservation legend Richard Ellis on what climate change is doing to seed quality.
- An amazing new global soil properties map is open for business.
- Scoring supermarkets for the human suffering they represent.
- The future of DNA barcoding…is here.
- Cotton 101.
- Strong evidence of Middle Stone Age tuber cooking in southern Africa.
- French wine growers dip a cautious toe into the grapewine interspecific genepool.
- Yields of mixtures of now “lost” native American crops comparable to those of maize.
- The canonical yearly frankincense story in honour of Epiphany.
- Biblical white olive makes a comeback in Italy.
- Useful update of mixture studies.
Brainfood: Diversification, Chefs, African rice breeding, Sustainable livestock, Miscanthus origin, Sweetpotato diversity, Wild banana seeds, Olive diversity, Tilapia diversity, Half Earth, Food access, Speedy pigeonpea, Peanut allergy, Colombian seed saving
- Modelling crop diversification and association effects in agricultural systems. Intercrop, people!
- Cooking up Diverse Diets: Advancing Biodiversity in Food and Agriculture through Collaborations with Chefs. Yeah, yeah, chefs are great. Now show me the data.
- Multivariate analysis and selection criteria for identification of African rice (Oryza glaberrima) for genetic improvement of indica rice cultivars. Go for high number of productive tillers and early maturity.
- Strategies for Sustainable Use of Indigenous Cattle Genetic Resources in Southern Africa. Not just genetic improvement: also need better nutrition, healthcare, marketing, and infrastructure; integration and empowerment of women and youth; and capacity building, regulatory, and policy frameworks. Not unlike crops, really.
- Population structure of Miscanthus sacchariflorus reveals two major polyploidization events, tetraploid-mediated unidirectional introgression from diploid M. sinensis, and diversity centred around the Yellow Sea. The centre of origin in under water.
- Remote sensing for agricultural applications: A meta-review. Yeah, yeah. Call me when you have a way of distinguishing landraces from modern varieties.
- Genetic Diversity of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam) Germplasms Collected Worldwide Using Chloroplast SSR Markers. 500 is not enough.
- Seed germination and storage studies in seed-fertile Musa indandamanensis and its conservation. Intermediate.
- Cultivated olive diversification at local and regional scales: evidence from the genetic characterization of French genetic resources. Areas with unexpected frosts have been, paradoxically, good for olive diversity.
- Genetic diversity of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) throughout West Africa. Corresponds to river basins. Well there’s a shocker.
- Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people. Add lowest-footprint pixels to PAs until you get to 50% coverage of each ecoregion, then count how many people live in PAs, for good or ill.
- Food Access Deficiencies in Sub-saharan Africa: Prevalence and Implications for Agricultural Interventions. Livestock helps, higher income not necessarily.
- Can a speed breeding approach accelerate genetic gain in pigeonpea? I’m going to guess yes.
- Hypoallergen Peanut Lines Identified Through Large-Scale Phenotyping of Global Diversity Panel: Providing Hope Toward Addressing One of the Major Global Food Safety Concerns. Lots of diversity to play with.
- Revolturas: resisting multinational seed corporations and legal seed regimes through seed-saving practices and activism in Colombia. Everybody’s at it.
Nibbles: Writing rules, CWR project, Foxes, Agrodealers, Etruscan diet
- Science writing 101.
- Science writing about crop wild relatives collecting.
- The animal domestication syndrome may not be a thing.
- The last rural mile: a survey of agrodealers in E. Africa.
- Eat like an Etruscan.
Nibbles: International genebanks, Ahmed Amri, Genebank management, Nutrition stories, Spice nomenclature, Breeding against waste, Cuneiform tablets, Breadfruit, Ag risk, Giant pineapple, Chiles in Mexico, Solanum jamesii, Seed Week, Kenyan community seedbank, Lost apples
- The CGIAR genebanks in the limelight.
- My friend Ahmed Amri is a big reason for the success of the above.
- The dual role of genebank managers like Ahmed.
- Feel-good nutrition stories needed.
- Rosemary gets a name change. Not many people hurt.
- Fighting food waste through breeding.
- Babylonian cooking deciphered.
- Breadfruit (and Diane Ragone) on TV.
- Maize looks doomed in Zambia. All hail sorghum.
- Food exhibition at the Fitzwilliam.
- Chiltepin culture.
- The forgotten potato of the Four Corners.
- Hey, it’s Seed Week 2019 in the UK and Ireland!
- Something similar in Kenya too, thanks to Bioversity and CCAFS.
- There’s always an apple detective story around this time of year.