Category: Featured

Tim likes the sound of Plants Map, but thinks we need a different approach to germplasm evaluation:

We are thinking a lot about this sort of platform at Seed Savers Exchange. Gardeners need better tools to learn what grows well in their area. In this day and age, there are so many models for citizen science projects like that… we just need the funding and a reliable coding partner to make one definitive site for data collection and dissemination. Such a tool would be very useful for breeders and genebanks too looking to crowd source the acts of assessing lines and identifying novel traits — but it would require breeders to screen in a different manner, that being they would need to ask simpler questions and be more open to qualitative data.

Jeremy is happy:

…good to see The Butter Museum on the long list, not least because my latest effort at Eat This Podcast is A brief history of Irish butter.

But not entirely, and to know why you have to read the full comment.

Darrell Rankin reminisces about Erna Bennett:

She told me about flying unarmed bombers from the U.S. to Britain, how her facility with languages led to her recruitment to the intelligence services, how she was parachuted into Greece, about her capture and liberation from Gestapo custody, how the British took Greece over after the war (the bullet holes are still visible) and about her career in the FAO.

And that’s not the half of it…

Rowan is incensed about an NPR article denigrating tiger nuts that we Nibbled.

The article does this delicious food no justice and a bit more research would have gone a long way.

Read the whole thing, and have your say.

Rick Jellen has an answer to our question about quinoa breeding:

Regarding the question of whether there has been a proportional increase in resources dedicated to quinoa breeding, the answer is … NO!

Allrighty then, Rick. Care to tell us more?