- Got a Neotropical flowering plant to identify? Kew has what you need.
- New Labour goes out with a whimper, and a swipe at cider-makers.
- Drought Timing for Agronomic Screening wins a prize.
- “We’ve heard about the Gene Bank project which serves to preserve certain cultivars and seed specimens, but we don’t know much else about this project.” Par for the course.
- Meanwhile, another genebank does get decent publicity.
- Women and homegardens in Bangladesh.
- Bag farms in Nairobi slum.
- Review of Dirt! The Movie.
- Boffins this close to drought-tolerant cowpeas.
- “…actual grain yield in some regions is already approximating its maximum possible yields while other regions show large yield gaps and therefore tentative larger potential for intensification.”
- The wife is going to the 1st International Symposium on Tropical Horticulture. Jamaica? No, she really wanted to go.
HortCRSP published online map
Psst, wanna find out about horticultural projects around the world?
View Horticultural Projects in a larger map
Mapping threats to biodiversity
Came across two maps of threats to biodiversity today. There’s a great online interactive map of the status of, threats to, and conservation actions in, the forests in the southern US. And UNEP has a map of threats to gorilla habitats and protected areas in eastern Congo. As I say, that’s just what turned up in my feed reader today. Now, tell me, why isn’t there something like this for… I don’t know… wheat? I mean forests are important to health, sure. But so is wheat.
Nibbles: Boswellia, Nepali rice, Andes, Pacific nutrition, Wild rice, Coffea, Kashmir, Fibres, Fermentation
- Saving Dhofar’s frankincense tree. Evocative things they are too.
- The rich may have trouble getting into heaven, but they manage more agrobiodiversity. At least of rice. At least in Nepal.
- Gotta be careful with niche modeling in mountain areas. Well, duh.
- New Pacific food leaflets from SPC.
- Ok, how weird is it that I have a personal connection of sorts to all of the above? Probably not much.
- Ex situ not enough for wild rice. Say it ain’t so!
- The evolution of coffee.
- “If the rains do not fall we may face problems with certain crops.” Right.
- Network on natural fibres proposed by Industree Craft Foundation and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Sounds like fun.
- Screening lactic acid strains for sorghum beer making. Well, kinda. Somebody please fund this vital research!
New Agriculturalist does (agro)biodiversity
The New Agriculturalist has a focus on biodiversity this month, including the agricultural kind. There’s a piece on the crop wild relatives distribution modeling work of our friend and occasional contributor Andy Jarvis. And a couple of things from my old stomping ground in the Pacific. All well worth a read.