Via El Cuexcomate, news that CONABIO now has information on the maize races of Mexico on its website, including photos and distribution maps. It’s all part of a huge project to document native maize diversity (including the wild relatives) which was stimulated by fears ((So whether justified or not, at least it cannot be denied that these fears had one positive outcome.)) about the influx of GM maize. And since we’re on the subject of maize, today also saw an informative post on pellagra, complete with very dramatic illustrations.
Sudanese sorghum by the numbers
The Plant Genetic Resources Unit of the Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC) of Sudan has just published a catalog of its sorghum collection. It mainly contains reams of characterization data, which of course will be easier to explore in their digital form, but it’s always good to have illustrations to go with the numbers. Would be great to see the data eventually make their way to Genesys.
Nibbles: Pollinator book, Museums, Quinoa and celiac disease, Plant growth analysis, Mangroves, Plant health
- You’ve heard of alternative lifestyles? Now read all about alternative pollinators.
- Why should we spend money digitizing natural history collections?
- Not all quinoa cultivars may be good for celiacs.
- The largest comparative growth experiment ever. Hope some of the 600+ species are crop wild relatives.
- Mangroves trap heavy metals. And sequester a lot of carbon. But they are moving. Thank goodness there’s lots of ways to value the services they provide.
- CABI’s Plantwise Knowledge Bank is online.
- Kew boffins blow up coffee. The genus, settle down.
Tenerife diversity illustrated
The Centro de Conservación de la Biodiversidad Agrícola de Tenerife (CCBAT) has a Facebook page on which they have just announced the release of an attractive new poster of bean diversity, reproduced here. There’s also one about potatoes. And a book summarizing traditional diversity in all the crops.
Nibbles: ITPGRFA consultation, Organic Wageningen, Rice good and bad, HarvestXXX, Genebank education, Ethnobiology teaching, YPARD, Wild coffee prospecting, Banana & cereal genomics, In vitro award, Coca Cola and conservation, Sam Dryden, Samara, Taro in Hawaii, Biodiversity and languages, Ancient food
- ITPGRFA launches stakeholder consultation on sustainable use. First order of business: figure out what the heck it is.
- Maybe Wageningen’s new professor of organic agriculture will know.
- IRRI finds healthy rice. Meanwhile, out on the front lines…
- HarvestPlus puts out an annual report. HarvestChoice gets to grips with lablab. Yeah I find the whole HarvestFillintheblank thing confusing too.
- Nature Education does genebanks. “Ex situ conservation appears to be effective; in situ conservation has few proponents except those who practice it out of necessity.” Whoa, easy, tiger!
- And speaking of education, here are some teaching resources in ethnobiology.
- Some of which may be useful to interesting yoofs in agriculture?
- Raiders of the Lost Coffee Bean? I would have avoided the Indiana Jones parallel, frankly.
- How banana and cereals genomics is going to get us all personal jetpacks.
- In the meantime, a banana tissue culture expert nabs ICAR Punjabrao Deshmukh Outstanding Woman Scientist Award 2011.
- What new technologies would most benefit conservation? DNA and IT, mostly, apparently, naturally.
- Coca Cola sustainable agriculture guy mentions pollinator biodiversity but not citrus biodiversity.
- Profile of the head of agriculture at the Gates Foundation.
- Kew’s Samara does mountain biodiversity, crop wild relatives and much more besides.
- Taro research in Hawaii summarized in a nice PDF.
- Biological and linguistic diversity go together like a, what, horse and carriage?
- The medieval fall of the Irish cow. And the Harappan origins of the curry. Esoteric, moi?