Category: Featured

Marty wants to point out that someone else beat USDA to GRIN-Global adoption:

Footnote #2 – our friends at the Czech Republic Crop Research Institute also have GRIN-Global fully up and running.

True, and very much due to the unstinting efforts of the late, much missed Dr Iva Faberova.

The Phytophactor has a question:

Isn’t it the saffron crocus stigma that serves as the dye/spice? The article says stamens. I’ve bought cheap stuff that included both, but it was intended to be used as a dye for Buddhist monks’ robes.

I think the high quality stuff is just stigmas, but anyone else care to clarify? Incidentally, if readers want to see wonderful pictures of the saffron harvest in Iran, go to Sidewalk Lyrics’ twitter stream and search for #Khorasan.

Paulo van Breugel tells us how to look for species that fulfill multiple functions in ICRAF’s new database thingy:

On each vegetation fact sheet there is a link to an excel workbook which lists the species and all their functions of that vegetation types. It allows you to do searches using multiple criteria using filters. See also the short tutorial.

Allrighty then.

Anne-Marie has a bone to pick with Vel Gnanendran, head of DFID’s Tanzania office:

Too right that that ‘people like [him] need to get much better at understanding the complexity and long-term nature of agricultural change.’ Anyone whose prior agricultural experience is apparently limited to growing ‘watercress’ from seed in a yoghurt pot at a primary school (it probably wasn’t watercress, luv) sounds like they are at the bottom of a very steep learning curve…funded by my taxes. For the sake of the Tanzanian people, I do hope that those designing and running agriculture projects under him have substantially more experience and expertise in agriculture.

Ouch.

My mate Danny knows a think or two about Maldivian melons:

Maldives is an interesting place for watermelons. I worked on the island of Thoddoo (in Alif Alif Atoll) back in the nineties on an IPM programme for watermelons. Thoddoo is the largest producer of watermelons (or was?) in the Maldives, strategically targeting the demand during the holy month of Ramadan in nearby Male.

But are they like Remaissance melons? Not that kind of melon, I guess.