- CIFOR scientist talks about the much-vaunted landscape approach.
- The repeated evolution of lemony flavour.
- Nice infographic of breadfruit diversity in the Pacific.
- Better infographic of chili pepper diversity in Mexico. Both are on Facebook. Hope you guys can see them.
- FAO’s Eve Crowley is didactic and inspirational by turns about women, co-operatives and rural development.
- Hardin vs Ostrom. Walk-over.
- How much does production have to increase, really? Lobell deals the cards.
- What are the effects of input subsidies on maize prices in Malawi and Zambia? Small to none.
- Plant database to charge for access? Never a good idea.
- Ok, here’s a first, a beer I don’t altogether feel like tasting.
- Last days of the soybean homecoming show in Hong Kong. Anybody out there seen it?
- Video on the intricacies of Kew. Not as long as you’d think.
- Weevils in sweet pea jar pinpoint season of Santorini eruption. Has anyone tried to recover DNA from the seeds?
- Experts for ensuring quality fish seeds to enhance production. Say what?
- How should we mark the extinction of the passenger pigeon next year?
Brainfood: Touristic islands, Pearl millet diversity, Barley diversity, Maize diversity, Weird chickpea, Sweet potato diversity, Pawpaw diversity, Grewia domestication, Agrobiodiversity is the key, Sunflower relative dynamics
Sorry about the Brainfood hiatus lately. Back now, and with a vengeance.
- Plant genetic resources in a touristic island: the case of Lefkada (Ionian Islands, Greece). Landraces and tourism can coexist.
- Assessment of genetic diversity among pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R Br.] cultivars using SSR markers. The cultivars coming out of a given breeding programme cluster together. No!
- Population genetic structure in a social landscape: barley in a traditional Ethiopian agricultural system. Farmer management trumps even altitude.
- Environmental and social factors account for Mexican maize richness and distribution: A data mining approach. Oh no it doesn’t.
- Identification of an upright peduncle and podding genotype in chickpea germplasm conserved in the National Genebank. That’s one out of 18,873.
- Molecular, morphological and agronomic characterization of the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) germplasm collection from Mozambique: Genotype selection for drought prone regions. 6 out of 28 local genotypes are drought tolerant. No word on whether they’re yellow fleshed too.
- Genotyping a large collection of pepper (Capsicum spp.) with SSR loci brings new evidence for the wild origin of cultivated C. annuum and the structuring of genetic diversity by human selection of cultivar types. The taxonomy is ok. Human selection is reflected by genetic diversity. A quarter of the accessions can be chosen which contain 97% of the genetic diversity. In other news, France has a collection of 1,300 peppers.
- Phenotypic and Genetic Diversity of Papaya. Wild papayas from South America are closer to an allied genus than to the cultigen.
- Grewia flavescens: a potential horticultural crop? Well, maybe.
- Agricultural biodiversity as a link between traditional food systems and contemporary development, social integrity and ecological health. You need sustainable small farms tied into global markets for high value food crops and ecosystem services. Marx rolls over in his grave.
- Proximity to agriculture alters abundance and community composition of wild sunflower mutualists and antagonists. Wild relative populations nearer to cultigen have more pollinators but fewer seed and leaf munchers than those further away. Not entirely sure what that means for in situ conservation, but I’m sure it’s something.
Nibbles: Atlantic potatoes, Andean feasting, Lupin biodiversity, Vegetable grafting, Agrobiodiversity survey, Seed lending library, Lathyrus factsheet, Wild horses, School feeding
- Tracing Canary Island potatoes back to the Andes.
- Lupin diversity, all in one handy place.
- Bangladeshi women are grafting away.
- Wanna take a survey of “lessons learned about ways and means to conserve and use genetic diversity to build resilience to climate change in food and agriculture systems“? Uhm.
- Maybe they should survey this guy.
- Kew takes on the grasspea.
- I have my freedom but I don’t have much time…
- FAO spots a win-win-win in school feeding programme linked to family farms.
Nibbles: USNCGRP, Cherokee Purple, Excess urban bees, Bottarga, Cannabis
- US listeners get an earful of the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation.
- And can read all about the history of one of the great heirloom tomatoes, Cherokee Purple.
- You can’t have too many urban beekeepers, or can you …? Be warned, the full article is behind a paywall.
- Floridian bottarga “tastes cleaner than the Italian stuff” shock.
- Molecular diversity among Cannabis genomes. We say, “bring back the landraces”.
Nibbles: Sustainability, Decaffeinated coffee, Salep orchids, Conference, Negroamaro
- The Sustainable Development Solutions Initiative wants your comments on its report Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems. You have till 15 August. h/t ILRI.
- We can do you natural decaf, if you’re willing to risk losing the entire coffee crop to drought or insects.
- Likewise, we can do you Turkish ice-cream, but you may have to do without some orchids in future.
- I don’t suppose the January 2014 meeting on “Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in a Changing Climate” being organised by NordGen will be able to help, but it might.
- I confess, I have found myself sipping a Negroamaro and wondering how it got that name.