Genebanks

May 7, 2009May 24, 2016

Wild fruit relatives threatened in Central Asia

Fauna & Flora International and Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) have published a Red List of Trees of Central Asia. This is part of the Global Trees Campaign.

The new report identifies 44 tree species in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan as globally threatened with extinction. Many of these species occur in the unique fruit and nut forests of Central Asia, an estimated 90% of which have been destroyed in the past 50 years.

One of the threatened fruit trees is the red-fleshed Malus niedzwetzkyana, from Kyrgyzstan.

Working with the Kyrgyz National Academy of Sciences, the Global Trees Campaign is identifying populations of this rare tree in Kyrgyzstan and taking measures to improve their conservation. With distinctive red-fleshed fruit, the Niedzwetzky apple is an excellent flagship for the conservation and sustainable management of this beleagured forest type.

The report is available online.

May 3, 2009

Botanical garden database heaven

An email alert from the good folks at Botanical Gardens Conservation International (BCGI) tells me they have spruced up their website. And the website in turns reminds me that May 18th is Plant Conservation Day, and we should probably do something about that here.

But the main reason for the alert is to draw our attention to two online databases: PlantSearch and GardenSearch.

PlantSearch enables users to locate rare or threatened plant species in cultivation around the world. This database is compiled from lists of living collections submitted to BGCI by the world’s botanic gardens. The database presently includes over 575,000 records representing almost 180,000 taxa from 692 gardens.

And you can find a garden anywhere in the world using GardenSearch, with over 2658 records. We’re working on an interactive botanic garden mapping tool too…

There’s a filter for crop wild relatives. Seems to me the botanical gardens community may be a bit further down the road out of database hell than the world’s genebanks.

May 1, 2009

Nibbles: Evolution, Beer, Bar codes, Food security

Crop diversity and evolution, a view from Australia.
Craft beer sales are up in the US (with video goodness).
Bar codes for genebank management: potato center’s experience.
Kuwait aims to buy Cambodia. Well, almost. Via .

April 30, 2009June 28, 2009

Nibbles: Peppers, Medicinals, NYC gardening, Science writing, Urban ag, Pouteria

Hot chili peppers on a blistering night, dust on my face and my cape…
“North America’s only medicinal herbs germplasm collection.” New one on me.
“Brooklyn was a breadbasket for the city only until the middle of the nineteenth century.” New one on me.
Different journalistic takes on cow genome.
Edmonton learns from Havana.
Lucuma no longer novel, can enter Europe.

April 23, 2009April 23, 2009

Nibbes: Nettles, Rivers, Rare species, Library, Afghanistan protected area, Nordic-Baltic-Russian collaboration, Photos, Disease

George Orwell scythes nettles, then seeks uses.
World’s rivers in trouble. Also other wetlands the world over. CWRs to be affected, along with everything else?
Let’s not get too hung up about rarity.

UNESCO launches World Digital Library. Gotta be some agrobiodiversity in there somewhere, surely. Yes indeedy.
Afghanistan’s first national park has some livestock wild relatives!
Circum-Baltic collaboration on genetic resources conservation.
Mongabay.com publishes lots of cool pictures of biodiversity to celebrate Earth Day yesterday. So does The Big Picture, even some vaguely farming ones. And Adam Forbes has just loaded a bunch of photos too. Luigi comments: Why didn’t we do the same for agrobiodiversity?
Tuberculosis and domestication. Not.