- Boffins say wild barley “a treasure trove.” Lay up not your treasures on Earth.
- Boffins say Florida mangoes “unique.” As is the mother, so is her daughter.
- Boffins say rice genetic diversity being eroded in the Philippines. They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
Bye bye, Miss American (Apple) Pie?
Maybe it was the discussion about apple varieties during the 60 Minutes piece on Svalbard:
…in the 1800s in the United States people were growing 7,100 named varieties of apples. 7,100 different varieties of apples that are catalogued,” Fowler explains.
“And how many are there today?” Pelley asks.
“We’ve lost about 6,800 of those, so the extinction rate for apples varieties in the United States is about 86 percent,” he explains.Â
More likely it was just the general interest in genebanks and crop diversity generated by the Svalbard phenomenon. In any case, it is great to see a mainstream publication like The Alantic Monthly waxing lyrical about apple conservation. Via The Fruit Blog.
Nibbles: Collards, Genebanks
- USDA goes hunting for long-lost heirloom collard greens: Indiana Jones unavailable for comment.
- USDA leader of genetic resources explains why genebanks matter: Indiana Jones laps it up.
Plants and health
Yes, yet another thematic trifecta. I swear I don’t go out looking for these, they just pop up every once in a while. CABI’s excellent blog had a piece today about CABI’s own fungal genetic resources collection and its value as a source of useful compounds. It includes Fleming’s original penicillin-producing strain so it does have form in that regard. Then Seeds Aside has a post on variation among olive varieties in a gene for an allergenic protein found on the pollen grain. And finally, over at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, a thumbnail sketch of the redoubtable Phebe Lankester, who wrote extensively on both botany and health — and occasionally on the link between the two — in the latter part of the 19th century. ((Ann B. Shteir. (2004) “Lankester, Phebe (1825–1900).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/58526, accessed 10 April 2008].))
Nibbles: Alabama genebank, sunflower, fruit dispersal, IAASTD
- Seed bank saves Alabama heirloom varieties, y’all.
- Retrotransposons go wild in sunflower. Kansas to the rescue.
- Avocados and gomphotheres. Apples and bears. Welcome back, Evil Fruit Lord!
- More about the IAASTD and its paradigm shift thing.