- Why do Afghani farmers grow the “wrong” crop? Because they can.
- Ancient bison DNA “could help improve modern agricultural livestock and breeding programs”.
Nibble: Wild apples, Genetic erosion, Bananas, Cow DNA, Honeybee virus survey, Women and traditional agriculture
- BBC slideshow on the wild apples of Khazakhstan.
- Malawi breeder decries genetic erosion.
- Bananas good for food security in central Africa. Well, yes.
- The ruminant family tree deconstructed.
- Public to help researchers locate wild honeybee colonies in Hawaii.
- “No Pesticides No Foreign Drinks.”
Nibbles: Markets, Easter Island, Honey, Coffee, Cowpea, Morocco, Urban Ag, Kenya
- I love pictures of agrobiodiversity in markets.
- Humans did for trees on Rapa Nui after all, not rats.
- Like refining chocolate, extracting honey is a fragrant, messy process. Bring it on.
- Fair Trade coffee unfair to farmers, CIAT says.
- Another day, another genome. This time it’s cowpea.
- 2000 year old food forest in Morocco. Honestly! And guess what? It’s not thriving.
- Another video (long). Education of an Urban Farmer.
- Education of an ex-pastoralist farmer, Karamojong, Kenya
Nibbles: Sunflower breeding, ITPGRFA, Grape genetics, ABA
- Jim Gerdes shows how the sunflower blossom is emasculated. Ouch.
- Mary Taylor interviewed on Radio Australia about the ITPGRFA and all that.
- The genetics of malvin production in grapes. No, wait, don’t go, it’s actually kind of interesting.
- Prof. Bryant summarizes Annals of Botany papers on lotus pollination, salt/drought tolerance in Atriplex and pre-harvest sprouting in sorghum. ABA seems to be involved in everything.
Nibbles: IUCN book, Ancient DNA, Durian, Bees, Enola
- IUCN book Conservation for a New Era is out. Agriculture on page 160.
- Ancient DNA, from the general to the particular, courtesy of pigs.
- Durian and alcohol don’t mix. Damn.
- New Internationalist does a number on bees. Thanks, Lubin.
- The last word on the Enola bean case. At last.