- Beer diversity to die for. Luigi comments: “Only 300?”
- Giant claims, some false, for genetic resources in North-East India.
- Coffee good for wild tree biodiversity. Joe unavailable for comment.
- How Alejandro Bonifacio saved quinoa. PROINPA comments: “And me?”
- Sheep manure’s contribution to Portuguese rye agriculture.
- Circum-Mediterranean escargotières.
- Map it or lose it.
Nibbles: String, Lake District, Apples, Biochar, Display, Firs, Sweet potato, Rice, Bison
- Lots of agrobiodiversity in one little piece of Neolithic string.
- Traditional cow breed saves plant saves rare moth. The elusive agrobiodiversity win-win-win?
- Centenarian arboreal agrobiodiversity artfully pruned.
- Burning agrobiodiversity. But in a good way. And for a good cause.
- Plant parts create Yuletide fantasy.
- Speaking of Yuletide, Christmas trees need diversity too. And Michigan State is there.
- Sure, it’s impressive, but is it a potato?
- Farming on the edge … of a large reservoir. Life has its ups and downs.
- Aristotle on bison faeces. Yes, that Aristotle.
Nibbles: Beans, Forests
- Fagioli in Italian cooking.
- Most valuable forests for C and biodiversity mapped.
- Guard animals.
Nibbles: Wikiforéts, Super-rape, Gut microbiome, Soybeans, Golf courses, Chestnuts, Rice, Yeast
- Wiki for African forest information. Go, make it multilingual, fill in the gaps, use it.
- Canola (rape) desalinates, gives fuel and enriched fodder. Jeremy comments: “I’m a tad skeptical.”
- Diversity of intestinal flora good for your figure. Or the other way around.
- Edamame bean comes to Britain. Why, one wonders.
- Golf courses good for salamanders. I wonder if anyone’s looked at how many CWRs they support.
- Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
- Rice domestication unpacked.
- More extreme beer. Oh, and the phylogeny of yeast.
Cocoa from tree to cup
News from both ends of the cacao value chain today. At the upstream end, new molecular marker work on over a thousand genebank accessions reveals that the species is divided into no less than 10 genetic clusters, rather than the conventionally recognized two. These show a clear geographic pattern: they are strung out along an east-west axis in the Amazon, probably reflecting, according to the authors, the location of ancient ridges (“palaeoarches”), which were barriers to dispersal not only for Theobroma but also for various fish groups. Meanwhile, at the downstream end, there’s an account of a visit to a “chocoholic mecca” in Santa Fe.
LATER. And, for the trifecta, news from somewhere around the middle of the value chain.
LATER STILL. What comes after trifecta?