Category: Featured

Eliseu is upset about the rumoured closure of the UK vegetable genebank at Wellesbourne:

I couldn’t disagree more with Luigi’s comment. No, don’t let it close. … A genebank is a lot more than a seed store and some people should know better!!!

He goes on to hoist Gorden Brown with a reminder of what he said on 21 April 2006: “Environmental sustainability is not an option, it is a requirement.” Fine words … I got some parsnips here.

Rhizowen offers Rome’s garden guerillas a choice target:

I’ve always felt that the Terme di Caracalla were missing something. Sunflowers.

A little too far away to look after them, but you never know …

Luis R. Aguilar congratulates his friend Humberto Rios Labrada of Cuba on winning the Goldman Environmental Prize.

Me gustaria felicitar a todos los ganadores de este importante premio en especial al Dr Humberto Rios Labrada por la modestia y sencillez que lo ha caracterizado a travez de toda su vida. Tengo el inmenso honor de figurar entre sus amigos intimos y por eso resalto sus caracteristicas personales independientemente del extraordinario talento que posee como cientifico y para lidiar con la envidia y la mezquindad de algunos mediocres colegas.

And we join him in that happy task.

Ford Denison lays it on the line:

I would like to see independent evidence of the superiority of transgenic corn under drought. The only published data I’ve found comes from tests by Monsanto, the company that developed it. I will be discussing this topic in greater depth in my forthcoming book: “Darwinian agriculture: where does nature’s wisdom lie?”

Can’t wait, for the data and the book.

Susan MacMillan tells us more about the new direction of genomics science at ILRI.

A few years ago, with the tremendous advances in gene technologies, a new kind of geneticist began to appear at ILRI, one that more resembles Hans Solo than Indiana Jones. These researchers are taking ‘whole systems’ approaches to the ‘livestock genetics’ field (a branch of knowledge that, like those temples Indiana Jones obsesses about, can appear of largely historical interest). These new geneticists are ambitiously adding environmental genetics (soil microbes, wildlife species…) to their livestock, parasite and human targets of interest. They’re interested in the WHOLE picture—and they claim they have the tools to productively investigate this brave new world of ‘landscape genomics’.

Much more where that came from…