North America’s largest native edible fruit
What is it? Asimina triloba, apparently. There’s a workshop coming up in a couple of months, at Kentucky State. Anyone going?
Nibbles: Sunflowers, Cherries, Red jungle fowl, Sheep, Russia, Kenya, GFU on NUS
- USDA boffins tour Aussie garbage dumps.
- Today’s “Save the British X” (where X=a fruit of your choice) story comes to you from The Times.
- And today’s multiple independent domestications story comes from India.
- And today’s how to boost urban biodiversity? From Brighton, UK.
- Mapping Russian crops and their pests.
- Kenyan government messing with prices to clear wheat market, boost neglected species.
- Our friends at the Global Facilitation Unit (for Neglected and Underutilised Species) have published a book.
Fruits galore
Always nice to see exotic fruits finding their way into markets. That seems to have happened with baobab – of all things – in the UK. And it may be on its way for the goji berry.
Conserving palms
Two palm stories were in the news yesterday. First, from Brazil, how a local community is changing its ways in an effort to exploit the juçara palm (Euterpe edulis) more sustainably. Then, from India, news of a biotechnological trick to determine the sex of palmyrah palms without having to wait for them to grow up.
I’ve been having to do rather more thinking about palm conservation than is altogether comfortable at work lately — coconut is such a beast, really. That, and these stories, and the need for some displacement activity got me googling. Kew and the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden seem to be at the forefront of palm conservation. There have been some successes in the field, but I’m beginning to think that at least for coconut the best bet may be Roland Bourdeix’s islet idea.