DNA – Page 102 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

Nibbles: Balanites, Yeast, Loquats, Radishes, Bamboo, Lamb

All science, some of the time.

Gene controlling rice architecture may hold promise for increased yield. Unless, of course, it doesn’t.
Attempts to control a deadly cassava virus in central Africa. I hope someone is conserving those susceptible varieties. They may be useless now, but who knows what the future will bring? And more questions.
And following the Kibale post, more on non-timber forest products and their trade.

Sorghum going to need a hand in India. Rice in China? Maybe not so much.
Photos of the 6th Annual Hawaii Seed Exchange.
More Pacific stuff: 3000-year-old Lapita chickens were haplogroup E, “a geographically widespread major haplogroup consisting of European, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Chinese domestic chickens.”
More on that thing about the gut biota being adapted to ethnic diets.
Wolves may have been turned into dogs earlier than previously thought.
Organic farming good for underground mutualists. Which sounds totally appropriate somehow.
Crop wild relatives: all you ever needed to know.
Bring back bees by bringing back the boy scout bee-keeping badge.
Here’s a weird one. US to cut 1.5 trillion calories from food by 2015. And there are 1 billion hungry. You do the math.
Farmers rear endemic moths on intercropped host plants for high quality silk in Madagascar. Enough hot buttons in there for ya?

Breeders called on to save key Afghani crop. No, not really.
GMOs not incompatible with organic, round 2.
The Columbian Exchange. People though, not crops.
USDA chief botanist was into Cannabis shock.
Novel way of growing rice unveiled.
Two livestock pdfs: What 2010 means for farm animal genetic resources conservation. And a book on European local breeds.

Academics say conservation of biodiversity does not benefit the poor. Maybe they’re talking about the wrong kind of biodiversity?
Innovation of the Week: Feeding Communities by Focusing on Women. I think my irony detector may be on the fritz.
All you ever wanted to know about farm subsidies in the US. h/t Food Politics.
The Bittersweet Dreams of Uruguay’s Beekeepers. Sad.
State microbes! Really fun, and informative. Any better ideas?
More microbes: The evolution of nitrogen fixation. Absolutely fascinating.
Slideshow on genebanks in southern Africa.
Pre-Columbian, Polynesian chickens in Chile not Polynesian and probably not pre-Columbian. Blast! Why must fun theories always run up against the brick wall of facts?
NordGen’s annual report: crops, forests, livestock.