Forests & trees – Page 38 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

November 30, 2018

Nibbles: Jackson on Vavilov, ICRAF genebank, #Imaginenopotatoes, Eye in the sky, Food system, Brazilian fruit singer, Fruit pix, Livestock data

Mike Jackson reminisces about 50 years in plant genetic resources.
Cracking story about taking a crack at cracking the problem of tree seeds.
CIP asks you to imagine a world without potatoes.
Satellites on the lookout for pests.
The food system is broken. Or maybe it’s working just fine, to the wrong end.
Singing about açaí.
Pomology, illustrated.
Livestock data, deconstructed.

November 27, 2018

Nibbles: Land use change, Herbarium data, Crop substitution, Agroforestry in PNG, Eat This Pickle

That global land use change map put to good polemical use.
Herbaria put to use.
Let them grow coca.
Well, it is sort of agroforestry, right?
Jeremy gets into a slight pickle.

November 22, 2018

Nibbles: Protected areas, Waley dance, Edible cricket, Plant & people, Open-pollinated seed, Apple origins, Horticultural tree genomics

Protected Planet report: The Website.
In praise of cows.
New edible insect turns up.
Telling the stories of humanity’s relationship with plants.
The beauty of open pollination.
You’d have thought everyone would know where the apple comes from by now.
The avocado, on the other hand…

November 15, 2018November 15, 2018

Nibbles: Australian wheat, Heirloom apple, Olive trouble, The Queen’s Mulberries, Watermelon breeding, Phancy phenotyping, Chefs & NUS, Cacao origins

An encomium for CIMMYT Down Under.
A paean for the Albemarle pippin. That’s an apple.
A threnody for the Italian olive.
An honour for British mulberries.
A tribute to USDA watermelon genomics.
An auto-panegyric from BASF. Yeah, I know auto is Latin, sue me.
A celebration of millet-loving chefs.
A reflection on the origin of that cacao origin paper, by the author.

November 13, 2018November 13, 2018

Nibbles: CBD, NPGS, Greek celery, Rodomiro Ortiz interview, Amazonian fruits, In vitro, Maize archaeology, Asian seed companies, Victorian root

Courtesy of Bioversity, useful summary of agricultural biodiversity events at the CBD COP, starting in a few days.
The USDA National Plant Germplasm System, justified.
The ancient symbolism of celery. Spoiler alert: death.
A breeding professor calls for a major change in breeding. Spoiler alert: productivity is not enough.
What’s the next açaí? And will it save the Amazon?
Saving threatened species. Spoiler alert: seeds are not enough.
9000 years of maize history, decoded.
The Access to Seeds Index 2019 report for South and Southeast Asia is out. Spoiler alert: I feel a guest post coming on.
UK supermarket to stock salsify.

1. What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
2. Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
3. Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
4. What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
5. Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
6. Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
7. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
8. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
9. Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
10. And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
11. And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
12. Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
13. You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
14. I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
15. Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
16. No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…
Published on April 4, 2025