- Cambridge University summarizes the 10,000-year journey “from foraging to farming”.
- A journey that’s still taking place at the Kuk Early Agricultural World Heritage Site in Papua New Guinea.
- Where researchers are working with farmers to see which vegetables grow best where.
- Tonka beans (Dipteryx odorata) are the foundation of a conservation programme in Venezuela.
- Bio-villages in Bangladesh, “to improve food security and increase the supply of nutritionally rich food”. Supported by IRRI!
Brainfood: Dietary diversity, Diversity and diseases, Soil IK, Insect symbionts, Rhizobia, Wild lettuce, Tree genetic erosion, Pre-domestication barley, Strampelli
- Relating dietary diversity and food variety scores to vegetable production and socio-economic status of women in rural Tanzania. Dietary diversity was all too often alarmingly low, and when it was it was associated with seasonal fluctuations in the production and collecting of vegetables. But a more varied diet need not necessarily be healthier, so more procedural sophistication will be necessary in follow-up studies.
- A risk-minimizing argument for traditional crop varietal diversity use to reduce pest and disease damage in agricultural ecosystems of Uganda. For Musa and beans, more varietal diversity meant less damage and less variation in damage.
- Exploring farmers’ local knowledge and perceptions of soil fertility and management in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Soils which farmers described as being more fertile were, ahem, more fertile.
- Population genetics of beneficial heritable symbionts. Of insects, that is. Important because they can confer protection from natural enemies, among other things. They behave a bit, but not entirely, like beneficial nuclear mutations.
- Widespread fitness alignment in the legume–rhizobium symbiosis. There are no cheaters.
- Genetic polymorphism in Lactuca aculeata populations and occurrence of natural putative hybrids between L. aculeata and L. serriola. Not much diversity in Israel, surprisingly. But isozymes?
- Meta-Analysis of Susceptibility of Woody Plants to Loss of Genetic Diversity through Habitat Fragmentation. The standard story — that trees suffer less genetic erosion because they are long-lived — is apparently wrong, even for wind pollinated trees.
- Large-scale cereal processing before domestication during the tenth millennium cal BC in northern Syria. “This was a community dedicated to the systematic production of food from wild cereals.”
- Nazareno Strampelli, the ‘Prophet’ of the green revolution. Before Norman, there was Nazareno.
- The memory remains: application of historical DNA for scaling biodiversity loss. Historical collections of salmon scales reveal many connections between modern evolutionary significant units (ESUs) in the Columbia River and old ones; but also, intriguingly, some differences.
Nibbles: Cassava value addition, African food project, ITPGRFA, Filipino bananas, Plant Cuttings, Seed schools, Refugee gardens, Fisheries double, Cherry blossoms
- Projects I should probably know about but had never heard of, no. 37: Cassava: Adding Value for Africa (C:AVA).
- Projects I should probably know about but had never heard of, no. 38: African Food Tradition rEvisited by Research (AFTER). Mopane left unvisited, though, alas.
- More from the ITPGRFA Secretary Down Under.
- From genebank to farmers: bananas in the Philippines.
- Things are looking up: there’s a new Plant Cuttings out.
- We should all go back to seed school. Hey, just tell me where.
- Family gardens for refugees. And for urban folk in Ethiopia.
- Learning from the past in order not to repeat it, Vol. 88: Sustainble fisheries. Repeating it anyway, Vol. 565543 coming all too soon. No, wait, here it is…
- It’s that time of year again, isn’t it. Spring. Bah, humbug.
Nibbles: Ancient sauce, Easter eggs, REDD and biodiversity
- Ancient fish sauce recreated.
- Easter egg symbolism deconstructed.
- Monitoring biodiversity in REDD projects. Including CWR?
Nibbles: Treaty in Malaysia, Vavilov in Sardinia, Vegetative crops, Aquaculture, Indian AnGR, Seed Savers, Ancient Egypt and thereabouts, Quinoa in Chile
- Michael Halewood in Genebank Policy Hell.
- Vavilov in Genebank Database Hell.
- A guide through Clonal Crops Conservation Hell.
- Pakistan contemplates genebank for carp “pure line and improved stairs for SAARC countries.” Bicycles next, I suppose. But will Ghana follow suit?
- Meanwhile across the border, India is putting resources into livestock conservation at both national and state level.
- Italian broccoli variety moves to Florida and makes the big time.
- And ancient Egyptian gardens make the big time in Amsterdam. Too bad it wont be possible to exchange seeds.
- I bet those ancient Egyptians had taro. They certainly had wheat and barley.
- But not quinoa, alas, despite what Thor Heyerdahl might have thought.