Category: Featured

Tony IDs some Pawnee Corn:

The center ear on the left picture appears to be the Pawnee Blue flour, a blue-black flour corn with ears 8″ to 10″ long, usually 8 rowed, plants 6′ to 8′ tall, 110 day variety.

The center ear in the right picture looks like Pawnee Red Flour corn, color light red, ears 6″ long.

This kind of thing is one of the absolute best bits about the internet.

Unlike Luigi, Catofstripes is worried about the future of the genebank at Wellesbourne:

This piece of news saddened me more than many recent disaster stories. All universities are struggling for funding at the moment and most are losing money that they rely on but surely this is something that transcends mere academic interest?

To which one would have to ask, whose interests does it serve to fund a genebank?

Onkel Bob seems to know a lot about the Silk Road, do read the whole thing:

The exchange of food was very much a one way exchange, and surprisingly few staples went over this route.

Robert asks Andre the questions on almost everyone’s lips:

Is there is a real & significant risk that allowing non-certified seed exchange would undermine the certification system? To the extent that it could imperil agricultural production (and hence our society)? A risk grave enough to infringe on the free exchange of seeds (an overlooked, but fundamental, (post-neolithic) human right)?

Kanin the Apple Guy speaks:

I guess for me, the old cultivars hold historical significance but also have meaning beyond seedling trees because they were found to be valuable in the past. Rediscovering cultivars in abandoned orchards, experiencing their unique flavors, and speculating on their past utility contribute to the allure to these fruits…

Kanin is the lead author on that “Lost Apples Found” paper, and he has other good reasons too for conserving apple diversity as apples not genes.