- Today’s new superfruit. This one doesn’t surprise me.
- Tomorrow’s super-spaghetti. This one really baffles me.
- Today’s new source of bioenergy: bananas. Shocking.
- 50 ways to love your tomatoes. Turn ‘em to jam, Pam.
- One reason to hate tomatoes, for good bad muslims.
- Trendy micro greens are more nutritious. Get ‘em young, chum.
- “If they are so good, why are they not spreading on their own?” Crops for the Future gives NUS the third degree.
- Robert Fortune, pioneer biopirate.
- Forget oil, water and phosphorus. Peak coffee is as scary as it gets.
- How to save urban agriculture: by the numbers.
Nibbles: Kerala, Marker-assisted selection, Plant breeding for fun, Plant breeding for money, Benefit-sharing, Drought resistance
- If you’re interested in the history, traditions and cuisine of Kerala, this is the website for you.
- How about some whizz-bang technology to improve neglected and orphan crops?
- A blogger Tedtalks about participatory plant breeding in Wageningen.
- And get this: There’s big money in quasi-public sector plant breeding.
- “In the Coella and Combeima watersheds (Tolima, Colombia) the narrative of managing the commons is taking … a participatory shape.”
- The Scientist Gardener explores engineered drought-resistant maize and meets with Darwinian approval.
Nibbles: Coffee, Seeds for seedlessness, Garden philosophy
- How to make coffee, diagrammed and phylogenized.
- Where do seedless watermelons come from? In a here-and-now sense.
- A long and fascinating read about gardens and war and much besides.
Brainfood: Lathyrus sativus, Leafy green porridge, iDArTs, Pungency, Earth ovens, Domestication, Recovery, Maize genomics
- Exploring the genetic diversity of Ethiopian grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) using EST-SSR markers. They’re variable, especially in Gonder, and future collecting missions need to give “due attention to underrepresented regions”.
- Green leafy porridges: how good are they in controlling glycaemic response?. Pretty good, but the leafy greens may not be what you’re expecting.
- iDArTs: increasing the value of genomic resources at no cost. No cost for genotyping, that is; the analysis probably does cost.
- A versatile PCR marker for pungency in Capsicum spp. Beats having to taste each progeny plant, I suppose.
- Earth Ovens (Píib) in the Maya Lowlands: Ethnobotanical Data Supporting Early Use. The food preparation method is as old as the food itself; 3400-3000 bce.
- Patterns and processes in crop domestication: an historical review and quantitative analysis of 203 global food crops. Terrific, broad survey, worth more of a write-up.
- Changes in Avian and Plant Communities of Aspen Woodlands over 12 Years after Livestock Removal in the Northwestern Great Basin. Removing livestock leads to “recovery of biological integrity”. Because livestock are not integral to anything.
- Historical genomics of North American maize. Fascinating analysis indicates selection based on a limited set of ancestor lines, and “decreased diversity in the ancestry of individual lines”.
Nibbles: Genebanks, Grasses, Traditional Diets, Cuba, Hominid diets, Drought, Polluted bison, Chinese research, Turkeys
- Luigi thumps his tub, again: genebanks are important.
- Studiously avoiding turf-war truisms, grass species exhibit diverse drought tolerance.
- “Honor the Gift of Food,” to diversify diet in line with ancient practices.
- “I do not believe any president in the world has been so intimately involved with the problem of food production is his country, or with such paltry results.” You’ll never guess who. Or what his brother is up to.
- “The problem is not so much the drought but our over-reliance on this single crop.” Diversify, young person.
- Cattle genes make for smaller bison.
- Chinese money makes for new ag research station in Mali.
- Give thanks: turkeys domesticated 1000 years earlier than previously thought.