I’ve just come across two Flickr groups which are intensely interesting from an agrobiodiversity perspective. Flickr is a photo sharing site, and I have in fact blogged about it before here, for example on how it could be used to map crop diversity. The two groups bring together photos taken in markets, with a lot of fruits and vegetables featured. As with my previous post on tomatoes, have a look at the mapping option in particular. A great time-waster, but I bet it could be used to look at geographic patterns in vegetable diversity in markets.
“Edible Expeditions” exhibition excites exceedingly
The Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco, “North America’s oldest existing public conservatory,” has an exhibition on until November called “Edible Expeditions.”
It’s a chance to see food in the wild as visitors take a discovery journey of edible plants from around the world. Arranged in lush demonstration gardens, Edible Expeditions highlights the many delicious products that we enjoy from tropical countries like chocolate, vanilla, coffee, rice and spices galore. Interactive demonstrations help visitors understand how their food goes from vine to dine. And families will enjoy the many hands on Edibilicious activities that allow children to explore tropical roots, fruits, leaves and seeds with their senses.
Sounds great, but we’d like to hear about it firsthand. If anybody out there goes, let us know what you thought of it. Via.
Nibbles: Savannah
- “Experimental botany, murderous pirates, secret tunnels and an all you can eat buffet; there are very few places where these things can all be found together.”
Finnish genebank attacked
Something else to add to the long list of problems that can afflict field genebanks:
Hordes of moles have penetrated into the MTT Agrifood Research Finland plant gene bank in Laukaa during the winter.
A lot of damage was done to fruit tree saplings in particular. Fortunately, there is a back-up site, but not all material is safety duplicated. More protective measures are to be introduced. Also, there seems to be a lot of cryopreservation work going on at Laukaa, so maybe in time there will be an added level of protection. MTT Agrifood research have a nice pamphlet on Finnish agrobiodiversity and its conservation.
Kesar magoes on the ropes in Gujarat
Farmers in Gujarat are cutting down their mangoes because they no longer yield enough.
Kanu Korat, a farmer of Mandola village in Talala, earlier grew Kesar mango trees on 3.5 hectares of land; but he had to hew them owing to the crop failure. A change of weather conditions in recent times ruined the crop in the region, with mango production falling by 75 per cent. As a result, the farmers here have not been able to quote the normal price of mangoes.
That’s a pity, because Indian mangoes have only recently been allowed back into the US market. I don’t know anything about mango diversity, but the Kesar variety seems popular and fairly common (over 8,000 Google hits), so I don’t suppose it will be endangered by the cull. But still. The shape of things to come? Is this climate change in action?