- Impact of large-scale, government legislated and funded organic farming training on pesticide use in Andhra Pradesh, India: a cross-sectional study. Training was not enough.
- Australian local government policies on creating a healthy, sustainable, and equitable food system: analysis in New South Wales and Victoria. Local governments are not doing enough.
- Impact of seed system interventions on food and nutrition security in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review. Seems like Indian organic farming and Australian local governments should have tried seed system interventions.
- Market Intelligence and Incentive-Based Trait Ranking for Plant Breeding: A Sweetpotato Pilot in Uganda. Breeders need to figure out what farmers value.
- Plant Breeding for Intercropping in Temperate Field Crop Systems: A Review. Breeders need to look at context.
- Meta-analysis of apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.) fruit and juice quality traits for potential use in hard cider production. Breeders need to watch out for plasticity.
- Progenitor species hold untapped diversity for potential climate-responsive traits for use in wheat breeding and crop improvement. Breeders need to sequence crop wild relatives.
- The Use of Near-Infrared Imaging (NIR) as a Fast Non-Destructive Screening Tool to Identify Drought-Tolerant Wheat Genotypes. Breeders need fancy phenotyping.
- Coupling genetic structure analysis and ecological-niche modeling in Kersting’s groundnut in West Africa. Breeders need ecological niche modelling.
- The Origin of the State: Land Productivity or Appropriability? The state didn’t need breeders.
Nibbles: Eat this tomato, Access to Seeds Index, Tongan coconuts, Grounding the groundnut, Traditional Spain, Genebanks in China and Nigeria, Tree conservation, Sorghum & millet breeding, Iraqi ag, Genebank presentations
- Jeremy gets into tomato domestication and diversity on his podcast.
- The 2021 Access to Seeds Index Insights Report is out, and includes tomatoes.
- What is the most famous place for coconut varieties?
- A new book attempts to decolonize the peanut.
- Blood and water in Spain.
- A tale of two genebanks: China and Nigeria. Maybe the African Union can help? If not, maybe China might.
- Africa needs help with tree planting too. Maybe follow Italy’s example?
- Though maybe sorghum and millet will be ok.
- Send them to Iraqi farmers?
- Presentations on seed conservation and use in genebanks.
An apple story a day…
Well, that’s odd. The rush of stories about apples usually happens in the autumn. And yet, just in the past couple of days, quite apart from the tweet about Korbinian Aigner, I have come across:
- An excellent roundup from the Apples & People newsletter.
- A pointer to a webpage on the history of American apples.
- News of newly-bred hypoallergenic varieties.
Oh, and since I have you here, might as well also say that there’s been an update from GRIN-U. No new resources specifically on apples lately, but there’s been a few in the past.
Nibbles: American single malt, Gauguin’s coconut, World Seed Congress, Red gold, Kunming
- Will American single malt whiskey be a thing? Depends on the American barley.
- Is the fruit in Paul Gauguin’s Eü haere ia oe (Woman Holding a Fruit) a coconut? Have your say.
- Will the World Seed Congress sow a brilliant future? We shall see.
- Is the oil palm over in West Africa? Depends.
- Where are we with that post-2020 biodiversity deal? Nowhere much yet.
A remarkable pomologist
There was a fascinating tweet yesterday from Trevor & Frances FitzJohn, cider makers in Wairarapa, New Zealand.
One of the most courageous pomologists was Bavarian priest Korbinian Aigner. He was outspoken during WW2 and sent to Dachau concentration camp where he secret continued his apple breeding.
— TeePee Cider (@Trevor_FJ) March 29, 2022
It’s about the Bavarian priest, pomologist and artist Korbinian Aigner. I’m sorry to say I’d never heard of him. He apparently continued his apple breeding efforts even while imprisoned at Dachau.
Between two barracks he planted apple trees, and he even succeeded in breeding new varieties which he named KZ-1, KZ-2, KZ-3 and KZ-4, though by 2016 only KZ-3 (later named the Kobinian Apple in his honor) was still in existence. The saplings were smuggled out of the camp by a young novice nun, who visited the plantations in order to collect fruit and vegetables for a local orphanage.
Alas, I can’t find his KZ-3 variety in any of the usual genebank databases. Has anyone out there come across it?