Interesting ichthyological juxtaposition today in the old feed reader. While kids scour the few, small remaining pools of water for catfish in a parched Botswana, over in a specially stocked lake in Thailand, sports anglers catch a giant dog-eating catfish. ((And these things can get pretty big.)) I really like the idea of Lake Monster, where anglers can come and pit their wits, and strength, against those of some of the biggest — and rarest — of freshwater fish. Nice way to take pressure off the natural populations, while assembling an artificial fish diversity hotspot for study purposes. I guess a botanical equivalent would be the gardens of medicinal herbs established by and for traditional healers.
Conserving palms
Two palm stories were in the news yesterday. First, from Brazil, how a local community is changing its ways in an effort to exploit the juçara palm (Euterpe edulis) more sustainably. Then, from India, news of a biotechnological trick to determine the sex of palmyrah palms without having to wait for them to grow up.
I’ve been having to do rather more thinking about palm conservation than is altogether comfortable at work lately — coconut is such a beast, really. That, and these stories, and the need for some displacement activity got me googling. Kew and the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden seem to be at the forefront of palm conservation. There have been some successes in the field, but I’m beginning to think that at least for coconut the best bet may be Roland Bourdeix’s islet idea.
Beyond irony
Union Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Shri Kapil Sibal, upon the invitation of the Norwegian Government visited the Svalbard Global Seed Vault at Longearbyen and deposited five varieties of Indian seeds namely IR-36and IR-64 (of rice) and Lerma Rojo, Sonoro-64 and Ridley (of wheat).
Nibbles: Fungi, Cacao, Animal husbandry, China, Africa, Maize, Genebank
- Diverse strains + diverse substrates = diverse shiitake.
- Chocolate is from Mars. Jeremy comments: “A disease called witches”??? BBC Science reporting strikes again. Get the USDA’s version.
- Eldis on a roll this morning: Livestock and climate change in Africa, sustainability of Chinese agriculture, beyond magic bullets in African agriculture.
- EurekAlert! tries to catch up: Mexican landraces.
- Quality assured potato genebank.
Happy Birthday Ft Collins!
The National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation is 50 years old in August. Why aren’t people making more of this?