- The Australians have turned the sod on a new genebank. Can’t have too many genebanks.
- Climate change model reveals the differences between coffee and mango. Can’t have too many models. Or mangoes.
- GMO tomato that is not GMO and is purple could result in healthier, cheaper tomatoes. Can’t have too much confusion.
- Fantastically interesting infographic on where greenhouse gases come from. Can’t have too many good infographics.
- Among which I include Pop Chart Lab’s new taxonomic poster of The Various Varieties of Fruits. Fruit is good for you. And tomato is not a fruit
- A late addition: chickpea genome sequenced — twice. Can’t have too many chickpea genomes, as Nigel Chaffey explains.
The purple breadfruit of Tamotu
I really hope the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of the Solomon Islands won’t mind me reproducing this snippet on a cool breadfruit variety from the province of Temotu, courtesy of the April issue of their monthly electronic newsletter, Agrikalsa Nius. 1
Nibbles: Kenyan water, Peruvian diets, Kazakh horse meat, Orchard diversity, Rubus ID, Baltimore
- Kenya goes gung-ho for agrobiodiversity to make better use of scarce water.
- Peru enacts Law for the Promotion of Healthy Eating by Boys, Girls, and Adolescents to a mixed reception.
- Sent to Kazakhstan, a food writer thrills to dietary diversity in Almaty (without once mentioning apples).
- Holistic orchard conversion. “Turning an orchard from a lawn with fruit & nut trees in it into a purpose-built meadow with fruit & nut trees in it.”
- “Preservation of cultivar purity is a particular challenge for plants that are self-incompatible, and have easily germinating seeds and vigorously spreading rhizomes.” Amen.
- You’ve seen The Wire? Now read about The Duncan Street Miracle Garden.
Nibbles: Germany edition
- Why blogging has been light this week. And also, which resulted in this. Thirsty work …
- Which is why I love our new hosts (see above).
- There’s gotta be some of these around here.
- I know there’s a lot of these. And I have to say I prefer the beer.
- And as for the sort of things this guy made…
- I wonder how many crop wild relatives there are around here though.
- Or salmon.
- Ok, that’s all from here for now, but see you again soon.
Brainfood: Wild yeast, Sorbus evolution, Taro leaf blight, Vegetable sesame, Phast phenotyping, US CWR, Risk, Citizen science, GMOs, European meadow diversity, Hedysarum diversity, Pineapple diversity
- Introducing a New Breed of Wine Yeast: Interspecific Hybridisation between a Commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae Wine Yeast and Saccharomyces mikatae. The future of wine?
- Breeding systems, hybridization and continuing evolution in Avon Gorge Sorbus. You had me at “Avon Gorge, Bristol, UK, is a world ‘hotspot’ for Sorbus diversity.”
- Taro leaf blight — A threat to global food security. Yes, but we have the technology…
- Agromorphological characterization of Sesamum radiatum (Schum. and Thonn.), a neglected and underutilized species of traditional leafy vegetable of great importance in Benin. Yes, but we need the technology…
- Phenoscope: an automated large-scale phenotyping platform offering high spatial homogeneity. Somebody mention technology?
- An Inventory of Crop Wild Relatives of the United States. More than you’d think.
- Empirical Test of an Agricultural Landscape Model. The Importance of Farmer Preference for Risk Aversion and Crop Complexity. It’s not just about profit. At least in the UK.
- Using citizen scientists to measure an ecosystem service nationwide. Bullshit. No, really, it’s about the decomposition of cow pats.
- Intragenesis and cisgenesis as alternatives to transgenic crop development. Spingenesis.
- Managing biodiversity rich hay meadows in the EU: a comparison of Swedish and Romanian grasslands. Both need more input from local knowledge.
- Mediterranean Hedysarum phylogeny by transferable microsatellites from Medicago. Wait, Sulla? What happened to Hedysarum?
- Polymorphic microsatellite markers in pineapple (Ananas comosus (L.) Merrill). And?