- GBIF makes its move.
- Homaging the seed.
- Learning sustainability from old Amazonian farmers. Really old. Really, really old.
- Yet another Aussie genebank. Or maybe the same one, I’ve lost track. And interest.
- Where climate data comes from.
- Maine’s fiber community, what, exposed? Unveiled? Uncovered? And similar from Bolivia.
- REDD+ will save us all.
- Don’t crack open the mead to celebrate the solution to colony collapse disorder just yet.
- All things Capsicum on one handy website.
- Whole bunch of policy briefs on African seed systems. Don’t know if I’ll ever have the time to read through the lot, but cursory perusal suggests the following bottom line: the market can’t do it all by itself.
Nibbles: Tree Cotton, Organic labelling, Kosher marijuana, African Ag R&D
- Is tree cotton (Gossypium arboretum) about to enjoy a renaissance?
- What on earth is “gay” about organic labelling being equivalent in the USA and the EU?
- Is marijuana kosher for Passover? h/t DannyChamowitz.
- What does Denis Kyetere, executive director of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, foresee for the continent’s farmers?
Brainfood: Medicinal plants, Einkorn diversity, Chestnut diversity, Leeks etc, Phylogenetic diversity
- The Use of Phylogeny to Interpret Cross-Cultural Patterns in Plant Use and Guide Medicinal Plant Discovery: An Example from Pterocarpus (Leguminosae. It’s kinda like parallel evolution.
- Genetic diversity in the Red wild einkorn: T. urartu Gandilyan (Poaceae: Triticeae). Northwest Syria and South Turkey contain the most genetic diversity, and genetic similarity is not a proxy for geographic closeness.
- Castanea spp. biodiversity conservation: collection and characterization of the genetic diversity of an endangered species. Overview of a 7-year project to conserve and study sweet chestnut diversity.
- Diversity in Allium ampeloprasum: from small and wild to large and cultivated. The continuing, complex saga of onion, leek and garlic evolution. It’s about heterozygosity, rathen than ploidy.
- Phylogenetic diversity promotes ecosystem stability. How crazy is that!
Nibbles: Cannabaceae revisited, Farmer information, Sunflower genes, Urban foraging, Plant hunters, Forest gardens
- Hoping and doping: taxonomy of hops revised.
- What do farmers want? Where do they look for it? How much will they pay? IFPRI has answers.
- Van Gogh’s sunflower mutants explained.
- Gathering in the city: an annotated bibliography and review of the literature about human-plant interactions in urban ecosystems.
- Career advice: Plant Hunters.
- Coffee forest gardens improve food security.
Nibbles: Goats, Seed Fairs, Banana genebank, Prunus africana plans, Forage grass, English food, Talking heads
- USAID and partners to probe African goat breeds for performance measures.
- FAO sings the praises of its seed fairs in South Sudan.
- Bioversity’s banana genebank gets a big write-up.
- Prunus africana, the aged gentleman’s friend, could also be the Kenyan farmers’ friend. In about 40 years time. If we start now.
- And speaking of domestication, efforts to tame Panicum turgidum as a new forage grass are under way.
- It wasn’t industrialisation that made English food bad, no matter what a Nobel Laureate may think.
- All that #abdchat, just in case you missed it live.