- Why did the Chinese chicken cross the road? To get a new date. For domestication, that is.
- The Indian Farmer is actually three, millet-wise.
- USDA wades into specialty crops. Wonder if one of them is baobab, and a factsheet is involved. Or “small scale grains” for that matter.
- “Life in the countryside is hard.” But fear not, FAO is on it.
- Forests are not migrating. Species are actually undergoing range contraction at both ends. Well that’s weird.
- The first pheasant extinction? Say it ain’t so.
- I like pictures of old trees. So sue me.
- Jess stops traffic.
- Tour a cocoa genebank. Could this catch on?
- International Conference on Climate Change and Food Security (ICCCFS). Not hot air.
Brave New Grispworld
What IRRI’s DDG doesn’t mention in this video is that all those accessions (or many of them anyway) whose genomes are going to be painstakingly sequenced for the greater good of rice breeders everywhere are maintained, and have been for years, in the IRRI genebank. So I’m happy to say it for him. The international collections maintained by the CGIAR Centres are often called the crown jewels of the system. Cinderellas, more like.
And where is Luigi now?
Due to overwhelming popular demand, 1 here’s the next instalment of Luigi’s tour of Caucasus genebanks. Below is the site of the Scientific Center of Agrobiotechnology of the Ministry of Agriculture, which houses the Armenian national genebank, and is one of the key stakeholders in the national plant genetic resources programme. It is located in Echmiadzin (Էջմիածին), about a half hour drive to the west of Yerevan. A couple hundred meters north of the institute is the Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, the central cathedral of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The national genebank boasts something like 450 wheat, 300 chickpea and 100 capsicum accessions, among others. The Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin boasts three pieces of the True Cross and a bit of Noah’s Ark.
Nibbles: GMO tomatoes, Achocha, Biofortified beans,
- “These awful tomatoes are genetically modified organisms, (GMOs)”. Oh, really? I do wish I didn’t have to naysay quite so often.
- Cyclanthera pedata, in all its Himalayan glory. I’ve grown achocha, and it is a wonderful plant to have around. There, I yea-sayed!
- A new spin on “biofortified”. Beans biofortied “against excess heat, drought, water and pests”.
Where the hell is Luigi?
For all those 2 who asked me where the Genetic Resources Institute is in Baku, here it is:
It’s a veritable oasis in the middle of urban sprawl, what with its various fruit tree collections all around the newly expanded building. The circular structure is where the regional conference on “Diversity, characterization and utilization of plant genetic resources for enhanced resilience to climate change” was just held.