Genebanks

February 18, 2011

Botanic gardens get the treatment

We probably don’t give botanic gardens the attention they deserve. So it’s a pleasure to point out that Biodiversity and Conservation has a special issue out on Botanic Gardens in the Age of Climate Change, with a focus on Europe. Lots of interesting stuff in there, including from some old friends.

And since we’re on the subject of published papers, I’d like to say what a good idea it is to include an illustration in the abstract of a paper. I had not come across this before I stumbled on the example here on the left in a recent Scientia Horticulturae paper on Citrus phylogeny.

February 18, 2011February 17, 2011

The way things were

Mr El-Sayed Mohamed El-Azazi, Executive Director of the Egyptian Deserts Gene Bank, has posted a comment to one of our previous posts about the looting of his genebank. It includes a link the following presentation on what the place looked like before the fateful day. The call has gone out for help replacing lost equipment. One can only hope it will be heeded.

Egyptian Deserts Gene Bank Before 25/01/2011

More PowerPoint presentations from elsayed mohamed elazazi

February 17, 2011February 17, 2011

Nibbles: Food prices, Wheat breeding, Potato Park, Mead, Peanut processing

Is the World Producing Enough Food? The NY Times has the answer(s).
Aussies trying to get to grips with salinity through breeding. Very cool, but maybe they should just stop growing wheat and think of some other crop?
Potato Park potatoes to be parked in the Bóveda Global de Semillas de Svalbard.
You know what those naughty Vikings used to say: “Let there be mirth, mead and fornication!”
Adding value to peanuts in Bolivia. KIT video.

February 16, 2011February 16, 2011

Effects of looting of Egyptian genebank on film

We’ve heard again from El-Sayed Mohamed El-Azazi, who is Executive Director of the Egyptian Deserts Gene Bank at the North Sinai Research Station. This time it’s a video of the effects of the recent looting, which he sent to our colleagues at Bioversity International. He confirms that the tissue culture and molecular labs have been destroyed, as well as part of the herbarium, and all computers stolen. But also that the seeds are still ok in the cold room, as you can see towards the end of the video. El-Sayed suggests in his commentary, which is for the most part a sad enumeration of equipment destroyed or stolen, that the looters were perhaps afraid to go into the cold room, and that’s why they left it unharmed.

Egyptian Desert Genebank from Crop Trust on Vimeo.

February 13, 2011February 13, 2011

Pavlovsk mainstay passes away

Leonid Burmistrov, Leading Scientist of the Fruit and Berry Crop Genetic Resources Department of the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) in St Petersburg, has died. From the recent announcement on the VIR website:

Leonid Burmistrov has made a significant contribution to the preservation of the threatened fruit and berry crop collections located at the Pavlovsk Experiment station of VIR. He gave 60 interviews to the Russian and foreign mass media. Thanks to his efforts, the collection continues to exist.