- It was Apple Day in the UK yesterday; here’s a decent account.
- The origin of the peanut; an account you may be able to understand.
- An amazing online seed finder: only in America.
Brainfood: Italian almonds, Bamboo in Europe, Ethiopian barley, Cryo bird balls, Finnish cattle products, Adaptation strategies, Soil microbes, RSA droughty SP, Livestock integration
- Genetic diversity and relationships among Italian and foreign almond germplasm as revealed by microsatellite markers. I hate it when abstracts of paywalled papers don’t really tell you anything of any use.
- Bamboo as a Crop in Western Europe – a SWOT Analysis. Yeah that’s not going to happen.
- Phenotypic Diversity for Qualitative Characters of Barley (Hordeum vulgare (L.[/efn_note] Landrace Collections from Southern Ethiopia. Need to focus conservation on Dawro, Sheka, Gamgofa and Keffa and across altitudes. I can’t believe we didn’t already know that but, unlike with the Italian almonds, at least this bit of potentially useful information is in the abstract. And the paper is free.
- Cryoconservation of avian gonads in Canada. And why not.
- Consumers as Conservers—Could Consumers’ Interest in a Specialty Product Help to Preserve Endangered Finncattle? Yes, if the consumers are green male carnivores. But then I could probably have told you that.
- What Influences Farmers’ Choice of Indigenous Adaptation Strategies for Agrobiodiversity Loss in Northern Ghana? Well, if I read this right, it is whether they have a radio, off-farm income and access to extension. But the math is complicated.
- Does agricultural crop diversity enhance soil microbial biomass and organic matter dynamics? A meta-analysis. They mean rotations, and the answer is yes.
- Evaluation of selected sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas) accessions for drought tolerance. Gotta love it when a genebank gets some use and a student gets a degree.
- Integrated crop–livestock systems: Strategies to achieve synergy between agricultural production and environmental quality. Livestock are the key to ecologically sustainable intensification. But then they would say that, wouldn’t they.
Brainfood: Buckwheat crossing, Cedar restoration, Sustainable tapping, Indian goats, Indian horses, Kenyan yams, Lithuanian cranberry, Appalachian ethnobotany, AVRDC peppers, Chicken breeds
- Progress and prospects for interspecific hybridization in buckwheat and the genus Fagopyrum. Not easy.
- Mechanisms for the successful biological restoration of the threatened African pencilcedar (Juniperus procera Hochst. ex. Endl., Cupressaceae) in a degraded landscape. Needs help from local Acacia. Isn’t diversity wonderful?
- Tapping latex and alleles? The impacts of latex and bark harvesting on the genetic diversity of Himatanthus drasticus (Apocynaceae). Tapping latex leads to loss of genetic diversity, but they have a plan for sustainable harvesting.
- Analysis of genetic diversity in berari goat population of Maharashtra state. “Berari is not a recognized breed but a well established local population of goat which is yet to be fully explored for its phenotypic and genetic aspects.” So what would it take to recognize it? This paper?
- Molecular phylogeny of Indian horse breeds with special reference to Manipuri pony based on mitochondrial D-loop. It’s the most different of the 5 breeds of the sub-continent (yes, apparently only 5), and the most similar to the Thoroughbred.
- Estimation of genetic diversity of the Kenyan yam (Dioscorea spp.) using microsatellite markers. Most variation within provinces. And?
- Morphological and genetic diversity of European cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos L., Ericaceae) clones in Lithuanian reserves. Enough morphological variation to think about domestication; enough molecular marker variation to think about writing another paper.
- Down deep in the holler: chasing seeds and stories in southern Appalachia. It’s all about the friendships.
- Pepper (Capsicum spp.) Germplasm Dissemination by AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center: an Overview and Introspection. Here come the numbers: 8,165 accessions of Capsicum conserved, 11% of global total; 6,008 genebank accessions (20%) and 23,972 improved advanced lines (80%) distributed in 25 years; 51 open pollinated and hybrid cultivars of hot and sweet peppers commercialized by public and private sectors in South Asia, West Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus since 2005.
- Genetic characterization of local Italian breeds of chickens undergoing in situ conservation. Breeds are breeds.
Nibbles: Apples, Aussie genebank, Ugandan coffee song, Biodiversity hotspots, CWR inventory, Ancient Amazon, Chestnut recovery, Mainstreaming nutrition
- Yet another blog post about heirloom apples. Why not heirloom, I don’t know, grains?
- Yet another genebank opens.
- On the other hand, can never have too many agrobiodiversity songs.
- Banks? someone mention banks? Biodiversity hotspots are like (some) banks. Too big to fail.
- Even crop wild relative hotspots?
- 1491: Amazon.
- 1493: New England. Hope Charles Mann won’t mind me borrowing his tropes.
- Interesting use of technology to deliver interesting presentation on mainstreaming of nutrition in agricultural development. Anyone know how it was done?
Nibbles: Russian ‘rooms, CWFS, Small farmers and their systems, CABI pest maps, Aussie aid, Seed saving pod, Fiji video, CWR conference, Baobab & peanut festivals, Caribbean meets, Irish food security meet, Potty for pots, Salty microbes, Domesticated stomata, Bayer in Hyderabad
- Normal Russians hunt mushrooms.
- Committee on World Food Security meets. Not many people hurt.
- Normal Indian farmers go back to the future. So, in a different way, do Egyptian farmers. Rikin Gandhi probably knows all about it, and has made videos of it.
- I wonder if they’ve told the folks at the new, very agroecological Berkeley sustainable food institute. Though some would suggest they’re on a hiding to nothing there.
- You want past and future? Historical records used to predict spread of pests.
- When is development aid not development aid?
- Cherfas on Cavagnaro on seed saving. Trifecta.
- Cool ACIAR videos take me back to my stint in Fiji.
- International Conference on Utilization and Conservation of Crop Wild Relative (CWR) and Landrace (LR) Diversity for Crop Improvement. First order of business: think of a new name.
- Eden has a Baobab Festival. No word on the factsheet situation. But maybe you’d rather play it safe and try a peanut festival instead? OK, how about Coconuts of the Caribbean? No? Agrotourists of the Caribbean, then?
- Our Food. Our Future. Sustainability: The Bottom Line. Their presentations. Tell me if you find any agrobiodiversity in there. Well I dunno, maybe there will be some in the upcoming 2020 Policy Consultation on Building Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security, in 2014.
- Can you grow baobabs in a pot, I wonder? Or hydroponics for that matter.
- Salt-tolerant bacteria assist rooting in degraded soils. Easier than breeding, I guess.
- No consistent effect of domestication on stomata. Worth a try.
- Bayer goes to Hyderabad. To be near ICRISAT?