- CIAT genebank looking for a leader.
- IRRI soon-to-be-former (Thanks, Mike) DG looking for a new Green Revolution.
- Looking for pomegranates? Look no further.
- Cleome looking for markets. With genomics.
- Looking to the floating gardens of Bangladesh for answers.
- Looking for the origin of lager yeasts. And finding two of them.
- Looking to understand amaro.
- A good look at biofortification.
Frozen fruits
A recent Nibble describing work in South Dakota to extend ever northward the range of the grape, including using wild relatives to breed new cold-tolerant varieties, brought back childhood memories for one of our readers:
Hansen was a proponent of stretching agriculture for the harsh northern environments. My grandparents lived in northern South Dakota and hence Hansen was one of the horticultural heroes from my childhood.
Hansen is — or was — Dr Niels Hansen, “South Dakota’s Great Plant Pioneer.” He sounds a fascinating character:
Already in his senior year as an undergraduate in 1887, N.E. Hansen was writing to his father, “There is both money and honor to be gained by someone who succeeds in bringing out fruits, better than old ones.” The money seemed to elude Hansen, though – he never got wealthy from his work as a plant breeder. But he did win honor, and he cultivated it carefully.
As chance would have it, there was another article on a northern fruit yesterday, this time the blueberry. That also has a long history of breeding in the Great Plains, though it all really started in New Jersey, of all places, as the article describes. Perhaps not surprisingly, though, the blueberry has expanded more southwards than northwards recently.
No word on whether macadamia is next for the cold treatment.
Phenological diversity for nutrition
A recent blog post by the World Agroforestry Centre described their idea of a phenologically varied “fruit tree portfolio” to provide nutrition throughout the year. In Machakos, Kenya, where the portfolio is being tested out, these would be the species involved, a mixture of the local and the exotic:
A nice idea, and it reminded me that you can also do something similar by exploiting within-species diversity in seasonality. The example I know best comes from Diane Ragone’s work on breadfruit. This is from a presentation she gave recently at USAID.
Planting multiple varieties carefully chosen from each of these different groups means you can count on having some fruit throughout the year, most years. Great to have diversity at multiple levels to play around with.
Princely state of the British apple
Our readers have known for some years now that HRH Prince Charles has taken over a collection of apple varieties. Not so readers of the Sunday Times, apparently. Unfortunately, the article describing the Prince’s efforts to save the British apple is behind a paywall, so we cannot for now say whether it adds anything to the story we already knew. Maybe someone out there with a subscription can help us.
Nibbles: Summer holidays, Tajik bread, Farm to pizza, Västerbottensost, Diverse bananas, Banana wine, Chinese agroforestry, Peak coffee, Responsible oil palm, Model chickens, Damn you NS
- Ah, summer and its funny medieval holidays.
- Making bread in Tajikistan.
- Making pizza in Sussex.
- Making cheese in (one village in) Sweden.
- Diversifying bananas in Queensland.
- Diversifying banana products in Kenya.
- Diversifying with trees in China.
- Better diversify coffee.
- I see your responsible soy and raise you responsible oil palm.
- Cocks of the walk.
- I’m so annoyed the New Scientist article on breeding less bitter veggies is behind a paywall that I won’t even link to it. Google it, if you must.