Genebanks

Nibbles: New cassava, Community seedbank double, Rwandan beans, Knotweed et al., Seed systems, Adam Alexander, Uruguay genebank, Kelp biobank

There’s a new cassava in town in Kenya.
I wonder if it will end up in a community “seed” bank.
…because they swear by them in Zimbabwe.
Cassava is not the only American crops that’s important in parts of Africa: the cultural appropriation of beans in Rwanda.
Some American crops didn’t make it very far out of America.
Be it beans, cassava or sump/knotweed, what’s needed is a Quality-Declared Seed (QDS) system. Right?
Well you also need someone to go around collecting the stuff in the first place.
But don’t forget to back everything up in Svalbard, like Uruguay is doing.
Well maybe not everything.

Genebank pushes Bambara groundnut in Ghana.
Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University develops new varieties, deposits them in Indian genebank.
Bhutan’s national genebank explains its work.
Grafting fruit trees in India to save them.
All of the above contribute to SDG 2.5.
All of the above are needed to get out of the food and climate crises. How? Crop Trust executive directors explains for German speakers.

The Australian Network for Plant Conservation is celebrating the first birthday of the third edition of “Strategies and guidelines for developing, managing and utilising ex situ collections” with a nice bunch of resources. And a quick survey. Check it out.

Really old olive tree in the gardens of the mosque-cathedral of Cordoba is a lost variety.
Long extinct medicinal spice plant not extinct after all?
The next nearly extinct heirloom on our list is a watermelon from Virginia. Who knows, it may originally have been grown in Cordoba or Cyrenaica…
And moving in the opposite direction, a really hot Calabrian chili pepper beats the heat.
The ICARDA genebank is trying to find stuff that will beat the heat too.
Jamaica is looking to beat the heat by establishing some new genebanks.
Tamil Nadu going the community seedbank route, and why not? Jamaica please take note.
An alliance of forestry outfits is pushing for a global seedbank infrastructure to support woodland restoration. Nothing if not ambitious. And much needed.