Forests & trees

Nibbles: Cancun, Maya in Haiti, Indian Food, Pavlovsk, Currywurst, Banana biofuel, Book, Radio, Beer, East African cattle breed, Climate change and altitude, Amazon, Lycopersicon, Pollinator plants, Phenology, Economics

Good COP, bad COP? Registration opens for Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010, at COP16, the Climate Change COP.
Maya in Haiti? Jamaica? Institute expands its reach.
India considering making the right to food an actual right to food. But how?
Science magazine shares the Pav-Love-sk.
“From 28 August to 3 October, the Curried Sausage Field is open to visitors on Diedersdorfer Weg in Berlin. This is BfR’s second didactic plant labyrinth.” Don’t even ask.
Bananas for juice. Power type juice.
New book explores history, future of international agriculture. Anyone reading it?
Hear Bioversity’s DG warn Pacific islanders of fast food health risks.
“Without the yeast, beer would be nonalcoholic and noncarbonated.” Yeah, but then what would be the point? The Ecological Society of America considers beer — and issues a delightful apology.
Video on saving Ankole cattle.
Amphibians find it hard to move higher in response to climate change. And plants? Crops? Wild relatives? Has anyone done the modelling?
The pristine Amazon. Not.
Wild tomatoes and drought.
The best plants for pollinators.
When are different crops sown around the world? Gotta love meta-analyses.
Apparently conservationists interested in the economics of it all must abandon the “straightjacket of the Walrasian core.” So now there’s no excuse.

17 years of data confirm fears of bee decline.
Slideshow on Egyptian Deserts Genebank; prepare to be astounded.
Slideshow on US National Plant Germplasm System; prepare to be even more astounded.
Livestock and climate change, a background paper from ILRI.
“Most new farmland comes from cutting tropical forest.” The good news: it’s corporate, so can be pressured to stop.

Irish Times does seed saving, well.
Australia too considers genebanks. In depth.
“[T]he largest private collection of wild trees in Britain.” All grown from seed.
James and the Giant Corn gives you the straight dope on the wheat genome … so we don’t have to. Thanks.
Swiddeners can help with reforestation?
KIT tells us all about how to make spices sustainable.

Best round up yet of what’s happening at Pavlovsk Experiment Station.
Nature’s report on Pavlovsk is good too.
Pavlovsk making waves in India too. S.Ananthanarayanan shares a write-up in The Statesman, Kolkata.
More on that Chinese insect-eating fungus, or Chinese Love Flower. Yuck.
A one-woman crusade for traditional African leafy vegetables. Right.
Breadfruit trees in Jamaica. From the Trees that Feed Foundation, a new one on me.

Beer with shrooms. Well, not quite, but one can hope.
No more corn detasseling? Say it ain’t so.
“Oman to Plant 100,000 Coconut Trees in Dhofar.” That’s in the south of the country, a fascinating area. And one asks, as ever: What varieties, and what’s going to happen to the local material?
Be like the bamboo, man.
From DAD-Net, news of a mini-conference on the camel. And an article on same.
The struggle for forest grazing rights in India.
Dump blueberries, eat local berries, Brits told. Pavlovsk still in trouble.