The National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) awarded Dr. Diane Ragone, founder and director emerita of NTBG’s Breadfruit Institute 1, the 2024 David Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration. Dr. Ragone gave this presentation at the award ceremony, sharing her four-decade journey exploring, conserving, and promoting breadfruit.
Nibbles: Ukraine duplication, Mexican native maize, Andean agriculture double, Campanian crops double, Pacific cryobank, Moringa promotion
- A little more safety for Ukraine’s seeds, thanks to a new genebank.
- A little more safety for Mexico’s native maize, thanks to Pres. Sheinbaum.
- A little more safety for Andean agriculture, thanks to Ecuadorian Indigenous women and Inside Mater in Peru.
- A little more safety for Ischia’s zampognaro bean and Amalfi’s lemons, thanks to local people (and GIAHS).
- A little more safety for Pacific crops, thanks to cryopreservation. Breadfruit next?
- A little more safety for moringa? At least in Africa with all its “opportunity crops”?
Learn to save seeds online
Garden Organic in the UK is offering free seed-saving webinars in November, as part of their “Sowing your seeds” project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund:
- 4 Nov, 1-2pm: Getting started with seed saving
- 19 Nov, 6-7pm: Drying & storing seeds.
Sounds like fun.
Happy birthday MSB!!!
It’s the 25th birthday of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) at Wakehurst in West Sussex.
Understandably, it’s getting a lot of — very well-deserved — coverage. I’ll link to some of the more interesting pieces as they come out over the next few days.
- There’s a podcast hosted by King Charles, no less.
- The Guardian’s podcast is shorter and less cool but ok.
- Cate Blanchett is appearing in that royal podcast, as well as various more plebeian interviews. She’s the MSB’s first ever ambassador. She was recently featured, along with Wakehurst, in House & Garden.
- The Economist has a long piece about seed collecting for the MSB in Madagascar.
- RE:TV has produced a cool video.
- The BBC’s video is shorter and less cool but ok.
- Samara, the International Newsletter of the Millennium Seed Band Partnership, has a very comprehensive anniversary edition.
Here’s to the next 25!
Nibbles: Millennium Seed Bank 25th, NPGS, Maize germplasm, Breadfruit genebank, Banana genebank
- King Charles III talks about seeds with Dr Elinor Breman of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank and…
- …Cate Blanchett.
- Or read about it in The Economist.
- Or watch a nice video.
- The seed banks of the National Plant Germplasm System in the USA are for farmers, not just researchers.
- How to get stuff out of the NPGS.
- Laurajean Lewis: from an NPGS genebank to CIMMYT’s.
- I’m sure she and Chris Mujjabi will get to know each other soon.
- Diane Ragone: Not all genebanks are seed banks.
- Not a lot of breadfruits in Belgium but, surprisingly, lots of bananas.