Forests & trees

Nibbles: Prof. Mithen, Commons, Park Grass, Maize genome dupe, Training breeders, Insect-eating fungi, Shea, Teff breeding, Cannabis genome, Organic study, Old sunflower domestication, Rick’s tomatoes

Developer of super broccoli reflects on his career. With photo of collectors in NSFW shorts.
Touring the commons of the world. Thankfully no tight shorts in sight.
Video explaining Rothamsted’s Park Grass experiment. Apparel entirely acceptable, don’t worry.
Ten million-year-old genome duplication finally came good when ancient farmers domesticated maize.
Training materials for African breeders to be developed.
Fungal diversity to the rescue of plants, for a change.
Africa’s black soap.
Improving teff. That’s a low bar, I suspect.
A genome I’m sure we can all get behind.
Oh dear, that organic meta-analysis “flawed” after all. Will it ever end?
Rethinking sunflower domestication. An oldie but goldie, which re-surfaced today for some reason. Does anyone know where we are with this now?
The Deliverance of tomatoes.

Touring the world’s coffee processors.
Liquorice next? Starting in the UK?
India has 30% of the world’s cattle. Which you might not be able to guess from these very cool ILRI maps. Including one on chickens, in which the Nordic countries feature perhaps less than they should.
The Global Nutrition Report will have these indicators at country level. Some stuff there on fruit and vegetable consumption, but why nothing specifically on dietary diversity? Anyway, if you’d like to make suggestions, you can.
Wait, why is there nothing on alcohol consumption? And is diversity in alcohol-producing plants a good thing? I mean, nutrition-wise.
Uhm, nothing on urban agriculture either. I bet you that’s an indicator of something or other, nutrition-wise.
Maybe Amy Ickowitz of CIFOR will suggest some indicators. She has interesting data on forest cover and child nutrition.
How to make cacao cultivation more sustainable.
Andy Jarvis on how to scale up climate-smart agriculture without necessarily sacrificing goats. Nor, presumably, nutrition.
Model says environment can support subsistence hunting and agriculture only up to a point, and no more. Still no cure for cancer. But did someone tell the Mapuche?
Well, what do you know, genes come, and genes go.

Drought tolerance? It’s the carbs.
Whisky 101.
Coincidental mashup of the above. Barley used in whisky production provides clue to drought tolerance.
Pre-hispanic veggies.
Pre-hispanic carbs.
Pre-hispanic livestock.
Sustainable agriculture deconstructed.
GBIF scores Chinese specimens.

At the risk of annoying Dave Wood again, here’s something on agroforestry in Africa.
A podcast on what it takes to make parmigiano reggiano.
Speaking of Italian agricultural products, it’s not all sweetness and light.
But can you put purslane on pizza?
Funding breadfruit.
Community seed banks take off in India.
Kiribati will need some too. But in Fiji.
The Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative is on Slideshare. Not much comfort for Kiribati, I suspect.

Crowdsourcing the Global Nutrition Report.
Which will not cover the Neanderthals.
Azolla genome project meets crowdfunding target, gets love from BGI.
Would that contribute to Evergreen Agriculture?
I bet breadfruit would, but New Scientist has put an article about that interesting tree behind a paywall. But, see this teaser…
Some people think the potato bean will.
Another genebank in Canada. Not crops, though, I suspect.
Saving the camel in Rajasthan.
ICRISAT gets a new DG.
Podcast on the history of American beer. Perfect note on which to wish you all a good rest of the weekend.