- Mr Chetri’s genebank.
- Ruby chocolate. You heard me.
- The next Green Revolution won’t be like the first one. Phew.
- Ideas that will change the world include “super plants” like enset. Right.
- But not, surprisingly, quinoa.
- Or bush tucker.
Sin maíz no hay país
Town by town, I looked for these seeds, studying where they might be located. I started driving to many states in Mexico trying to find them, but there were none. It was so disappointing. One by one, I had people telling me that their grandparents planted them, but not anymore, and they lost the seeds awhile ago… I visited a very old lady who recalled planting them herself, but there was a big frost many years ago that caused her to lose all her seeds. After that, she started buying tortillas.
That’s Rafael Mier on maize in Mexico. But in how many places around the world, and for how many crops, is something similar happening? Perhaps the worst thing about genetic erosion is that we don’t know what we don’t know. But then again, maybe it doesn’t matter, if there are people out there like Rafael doing something about it.
…he was eventually able to find the popcorn seed he needed from a farmer in Mexico state—after planting, it’ll be part of his 2017 personal harvest as well as the first harvest of this variety in 60 years, Mier believes.
Mier believes.
Nibbles: Cyprus seeds, Vietnamese rice, Policy briefs, English breakfast tea, Magic mushrooms, Peanut ontology Moccasin Boots, GeoAgro, Zea archaeology, Oenoarchaology, Old ham, ICRISAT genebank, Coffee podcast, ITPGRFA, Amphicarpaea bracteata
- “It is like archaeology to me. When you save an ancient seed it is like saving a sculpture. It represents the culture, tradition and history. Different types have different traits and intense flavours, like tomatoes years ago for example.”
- Vietnamese specialty rices direct from the genebank. Totally unrelated to this NY Times video-essay on Hmong rice farming.
- Time for tea.
- Making coffee good again. Jeremy explores fair trade and Fair Trade. Do tea now, please, Cherfas.
- ‘Shrooms got magic horizontally, man.
- Why do circus peanuts taste of bananas?
- Bringing back the mouse bean. Which may or may not taste of bananas.
- Cool maize book to round off the Native American crops trifecta.
- Oh no, here’s another one. Pinning down maize domestication.
- Funky ICARDA agroclimatological app.
- REALLY old Italian wine. And something to go with it.
- ICRISAT has a genebank in Zimbabwe too.
- Plant Treaty transfers hit a milestone.
- Policy brief on policy briefs. Homework: do a killer policy brief on any of the above.
Nibbles: Seed saving, Craft saving, Talking sweet potatoes, Breeding eggplants, Cat domestication, Cary on Svalbard, US apple book, US strawberries, Forages newsletter, Banana double
- 94% is the new 75%. Here’s some of the survivors.
- But how many crafts have we lost?
- Win a prize for communicating about sweet potatoes.
- Pre-breeding eggplants using their wild relatives.
- Two waves of cat domestication.
- Svalbard double.
- 350 buck’s worth of apple history.
- 10 cent’s worth of strawberry history.
- Latest newsletter from those nice forages genetic resources conservation folks.
- Bananas good and bad news.
Brainfood: Wild foods, Maize in Guatemala, Wild lentils, Sorghum gaps, Ethiopian erosion, Chikanda barcoding, Brazil nut systems, Wild carrots, Ancient wild potato use, Wild wheat grains
- The role of wild fruits and vegetables in delivering a balanced and healthy diet. Not great, until they’re domesticated.
- Maize Diversity, Market Access, and Poverty Reduction in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Forget maize.
- Evaluation of Wild Lentil Species as Genetic Resources to Improve Drought Tolerance in Cultivated Lentil. Environment explained drought response in wild lentils better than molecular classification.
- Geographical distribution, diversity and gap analysis of East African sorghum collection conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. Both Sudans.
- Explaining the Ethiopian farmers’ perceptions on potential loss of traditional crop varieties: A principal components regression analysis. Poor farmers know more, and care more, about loss of traditional landraces.
- High-throughput sequencing of African chikanda cake highlights conservation challenges in orchids. Those are very biodiverse cakes, but not in a good way.
- Revisiting the ‘cornerstone of Amazonian conservation’: a socioecological assessment of Brazil nut exploitation. It’s actually in pretty good shape, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.
- Phylogenetic Prediction of Alternaria Leaf Blight Resistance in Wild and Cultivated Species of Carrots. Look for taller material in clade A.
- Starch granule evidence for the earliest potato use in North America. S. jamesii may have been used for 10,000 years in Utah.
- Genome-Wide Association Study of Grain Architecture in Wild Wheat Aegilops tauschii. Two genetic lineages, with big differences in grain width and weight.