- USAID promotes eco-tourism in Uganda, no mention of agriculture.
- Genetics 101 (cont). Rebsie explains all.
- Irishman finds apples in Orange.
- Hold the pizza.
No, she wanted to go
I can’t imagine why the Jamaica Information Service should have decided to tell the world about the work of the Crop Research Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Research and Development Division. And at quite some length to boot. But I’m glad they did. Lots of interesting stuff about agrobiodiversity conservation, seed production and breeding. Now you know where to get your scotch bonnet seeds.
Adapting in the Andes
Climate change is leading to an increase in late blight and other diseases in Andean potato fields, and farmers are moving up the mountain in response. They’re also trying to figure out which of their dozens of varieties — plus others from genebanks, especially CIP’s — are going to do best, where. Hear all about it at NPR. There’s a great slideshow too.
Nibbles: Carnival, pomegranates, cattle, potatoes
- Berry Go Round No. 2 is up with lots and lots of botanical links.
- Pomegranate juice manufacturer says its juice is best.
- Cattle and aurochs did the wild thing.
- The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has a potato genebank. With pic goodness.
In other pomegranate news…
My recent post about the wild pomegranate of Socotra (Punica protopunica) elicited a comment from the publisher of an interesting-sounding book called Pomegranate Roads, by Dr Gregory Levin ((Regular readers will know that this fruit has been much on my mind recently.)):
For more than forty years, Dr Gregory Levin trekked across Central Asia and the Trans-Caucasus in search of rare, endangered and mysterious wild pomegranates. His home was a remote Soviet station in the mountains that separate Turkmenistan from Iran. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, he found himself exiled from his own hidden Eden and his collection of 1,117 pomegranates. Gregory Levin has written a fascinating memoir of his life with pomegranates. He illuminates the botany, the history and myths, the astonishing range of tastes, and the health benefits – from folklore to pharmaceuticals – that make it the wonder fruit of our time.
I hope to read the book soon, and review it here, but I wonder what Dr Levin would make of news from Kashmir that the local pomegranate variety — called “Dane” — is threatened by an insect pest. Is this variety conserved ex situ? If so, I hope it is found in a genebank other than the one in Jharkhand that was reported late last year to be threatened with annihilation. We haven’t heard anything on that lately, by the way, and a quick search on Google News revealed nothing. Does anyone know what’s going on?
P.S. Stefano Padulosi of Bioversity International worked with Dr Levin on the pomegranate collection. There’s a video of him talking about it on YouTube.