Fruits and nuts

September 1, 2010

More Pavlovsk on the web

There’s a very good report from Pavlovsk on Al Jazeera’s youtube channel.

My only objection is to the reference to Pavlovsk as “one of only two botanical repositories on the planet.” And since we’re being all multimedia and social networky, I’ll also mention the photos on the Global Crop Diversity Trust’s Facebook page, which could do with — and are in fact receiving — some user-provided value-added.

August 28, 2010August 30, 2010

Nibbles: Wild tomatoes, Brachiaria, Agroforestry, Syrian drought, Vegetable seeds, Durian

How cool is it that a descendant of Charles Darwin is working on wild tomatoes on the Galapagos?
More on the Brazilian “Economic Miracle.”
Let my people plant trees on farmland!
Trouble for Syrian agriculture.
“The D. Landreth Seed Company has sold seeds to every president from George Washington to FDR.” And Obama?
Views on the durian.

August 27, 2010August 27, 2010

Nibbles: Biotech to the rescue, Chinese horses, Soybean carotenoids, CropMobs, Nutrition, Coffee pests, Varroa, Berries, NUS

Genejockeys say they have sorted that global food supply problem everybody’s been so antsy about lately. No, wait, maybe it’s this.
China has 23 indigenous horse breeds. At least.
Latest crop to get the orange treatment is soybean.
Diverse ways of doing agriculture: Could CropMobs go global?
Choose foods, not nutrients. Heck, yes.
Globally warmed beetles threatening your coffee crops? Bring on biodiversity!
Brit breeds bees for better grooming.
How to get the most out of your wild blueberries. Maybe we should tell Medvedev?
Emerging Crops is a new NUS project, and it has a website.

August 25, 2010August 25, 2010

Nibbles: Melaku Worede, Musa, Coconut water, Gates outreach, Bolivian food, Ag and health, Climate change, Diet, Macadamias, Maya Nut Institute

An interview with the legendary Melaku Worede.
Rwanda has to go from 100 to 30,000 ha of bananas, apparently.
Coconut water good for athletes. And the rest of us too, actually.
Gates Foundation launches a “community page.”
Bolivians going back to their food roots.
“…better integration of health and agricultural interventions and policy” needed. Seconded.
“[A] graphical accounting of the limits to what one planet can provide.” Groovy climate change stuff.
And if that left you gasping for more, here’s “Socioeconomic consequences of climate change in Sub-equatorial Africa related to the agricultural sector”.
“Mediterranean” diet set for World Heritage Listing. Maybe. Spaniards, Greeks to object?
Kenya’s macadamia crop threatened, but help is at hand. In other news, Kenya has a macadamia crop.
Equilibrium goes Nuts.

August 24, 2010August 24, 2010

Nibbles: Eggplant, Cactus domestication, Berries, Conservation, Drought, Conference, Chaffey, Rice relative, Cornus, Adansonia, Pavlovsk, Genebanks, Dams

How can you do Eggplant’s Rich History and not wonder why this generally huge, generally purple thing is called an eggplant?
Domestication of the Gray Ghost Organ Pipe cactus; exceedingly complex. Oh and there’s a cool photo here.
How berries protect the brain from age-related malfunction. Are you listening, Dmitry?
Protect medicinal plants, says letter-writer.
The world doesn’t understand drought tolerance, says another letter-writer.
Agrobiodiversity in Mesoamerica conference.
Chaffey’s Plant Cuttings from Annals of Botany. Must-read stuff.
A wild relative contributes trait for early morning flowering to rice, allowing it to escape sterility induced by high temperatures.
The Cornelian Cherry and the Baobab explained.
Voice of America devotes Special English report to Pavlovsk. If that ain’t viral, what is?
Genebanks on a roll in China. In Australia, not so much.
Dam dataset online. Let the mashups proliferate.