- Environmental health impacts of feeding crops to farmed fish. Wild fish is being replaced by plant-based food, which is both good and bad.
- Traditional Banana Diversity in Oceania: An Endangered Heritage. Pacific starchy bananas are all AAB, but fall into 2 genetic subgroups and 3 morphotypes. Persistence of diversity is linked to persistence of traditions.
- Gene-based SNP discovery in tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius) and common bean (P. vulgaris) for diversity analysis and comparative mapping. Two groups in domesticated teparies, plus the even more distinct wild. Close similarity with common bean means genes could be moved between the two species.
- Unlocking the genetic diversity of Creole wheats. Wheat has had long enough to adapt to different Mexican environments.
- Enhancing Legume Ecosystem Services through an Understanding of Plant–Pollinator Interplay. Legume breeders should consider functional floral traits.
- Genetic Relationships among Tall Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera L.) Accessions of the International Coconut Genebank for Latin America and the Caribbean (ICG-LAC), Evaluated Using Microsatellite Markers (SSRs). The Brazilian material came from Africa.
- Characterization of Natural and Simulated Herbivory on Wild Soybean (Glycine soja Seib. et Zucc.) for Use in Ecological Risk Assessment of Insect Protected Soybean. If transgenes conferring insect protection were to escape to the wild soybean in Japan, it would probably not have any effect on its weediness.
Nibbles: PPB, AnGR, Children of the corn, African wildlife & China, Japanese plastic food, Hedge balls, Falanghina et al., NY hipster kava bar, Genetics & diet
- The next step in the evolution of participatory plant breeding is evolutionary plant breeding.
- 1458 livestock breeds are in trouble.
- A blast from corn’s past. In more ways than one, as this article from High Country News is kinda old.
- The Chinese market in African wildlife is bad for both.
- Let them eat plastic.
- Maclura pomifera is apparently all the rage in Iowa.
- There’s more to Italian wine than chianti.
- “You can’t really get fucked up on kava.” I beg to differ.
- Two independent pieces on the continuing evolution of humans to cope with their diet: starch, milk and meat.
Nibbles: Craft beer, Citizen breeding, Botanical e-book, Horticultural bio-piracy, Pollinator reports, Rainforest Alliance map, Italian phytotron, YAP portfolio
- Peak hops? Say it ain’t so.
- Day-long plant-breeding-for-the-masses course at Oxford in April.
- Botanists of the twenty-first century: Roles, challenges and opportunities. An e-book for the ages.
- Genes to beans: polyploidy on a plate. A Royal Society lecture by Kathy Willis.
- Some naughty people have been collecting plants in India without permits.
- IPBES tells it like it is on pollinators. In a press release. You try to find the actual report online. Oh and here’s FAO getting in on the act. Though at least for this the report is easy to find.
- Great interactive map of the work of the Rainforest Alliance. Check out the agriculture tab.
- Italian researchers build a time machine. A phytotron, really, but let them have their little fun.
- Speaking of fun, GCARD3 Youth Agripreneurs Projects on “Climate Resilient Indian Cattle” and “fake seeds.” Lots more too, all interesting.
Nibbles: Banana trouble, Celebrating Ethiopia, Potato nutrition, Kenyan veggies, Coffee history, Twitty book, Biodiversity loss vid
- The musapocalypse gets an infographic.
- Celebrating agricultural biodiversity in Ethiopia.
- High calcium potato wild relatives in the news. No, really.
- NY Times catches up with the Kenyan leafy green revolution.
- The world’s prettiest (only?) coffee genealogy poster.
- The great Michael Twitty’s long-awaited book on African-American foodways is out.
- Nice video on biodiversity loss actually opens with Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
Nibbles: Indian agrobiodiversity, High throughput phenotyping, Diet history, Barley and health, Fish biodiversity, Earthworm diversity, Livestock disasters, Irvingia domestication, Caffeine extraction
- BBC Food Programme on crop diversity in India, with a little help from Bioversity’s Stefano Padulosi (whose name manages to be pronounced in three different ways in 20 minutes.
- How to measure photosynthesis on a grand scale.
- The origins of our diet. It’s the interactions, stupid.
- Barley as superfood. No, not the fermented kind.
- More diverse freshwaters give higher fish yields.
- European earthworm diversity mapped. No word on relationship with yields. Surprisingly difficult to see any correlation with agricultural intensification.
- It’s been a bad time for livestock (and therefore people) in Mongolia and in Ethiopia.
- Domesticating the wild mango that is not a mango but is almost as tasty.
- The weird world of the pure caffeine trade.