History

Nibbles: Microbial diversity, Blog, Yams, Benefits of diversity, Ancient ploughing, Oman’s genebank, Lodoicea, Wheat senescence, Maize landrace marketing, Setaria flowering, Prisoner yams, Eating weed

Microbiologist makes Guardians of Microbial Diversity award. Agromicrobes awaited.
Fabulous giant new superinteresting megablog scheduled to launch today. No RSS. ~~Yet?~~
Who likes which yams (by which they mean Dioscorea) in Madagascar? Kew will have answers.
Genetic diversity invades the zeitgeist, or something.
Or would you prefer something a little more down to earth?
Oldest ploughed fields in Czech lands.
Crazy mixed up report on this weeks new genebank, in ~~Oman~~ Qatar. “Up to 10,000 genes”? Be still my beating heart.
Ich bin ein coco-de-mer-nut.
Heat speeds up wheat aging. I know how it feels.
A “Starbucks Of Tortillas”? Sounds worse than it is.
Welcome news of fundamental work on a “minor” millet.
IITA goes to jail.
Genetically modifying cannabis to make it safe to eat. Such a bad idea. On so many levels.

Dogs were first domesticated animal. But the love affair is cooling off, at least for some breeds.
Building capacity for animal genetic resources use, and for conservation and sustainable use under the ITPGRFA. And tree domestication. Is someone keeping track?
BGI continues to take over DNA world.
And the Worst Plant Virus Oscar goes to…
How PNG farmers cope with drought. From what is developing into a really useful blog.
I wish I had time to read 200 pages on ancient Athenian food. But maybe you do?
Learn about the USDA potato collection, including lots of wild relatives.
The tree that thinks it’s a supermarket: Moringa in the limelight again.

More evidence of India’s fascination with little-known indigenous
cattle breeds.
Forbes reviews Borlaug bio.
FAO Forestry has a nifty new mobile app. No idea why.
VI International Symposium on Brassicas and XVIII Crucifer Genetics Workshop looking for sponsors. Any ideas?
Prof Pat Heslop-Harrison is today’s “Face of Plant Cell Biology“.
Of course it is a daft idea to claim rights over the word “agave”. But will anyone listen?
Blimey! A penguin is like a lime juice.

Norwich boffins save the world. To get the real story, you need to deconstruct the piece using this.
“Results indicate that the greatest agriculture-led growth opportunities in West Africa reside in staple crops (cereals and roots and tubers) and livestock production.” Minor crops get the shaft again?
Project tackles conservation of Asian farm animal diversity. I’ve always wondered whether there might be a role for ecotourism. I’d pay to see weird cocks. And hens.
Pakistani boffins return home with skills to improve wheat P efficiency. And the resources? We shall see.
Chinese food and plant semiotics. Can’t wait for LanguageLog to get to grips with this.
NordGen characterizes a weirdly-named exotic Cinderella crop. Can you guess which?
And can you guess what the “best kept secret of agricultural success” might be? Clue: nothing to do with those East Anglian boffins of the first item.
Participatory plant breeding and gender analysis. They’re not giving much away at the source site.

The Archaeobotanist reviews the domestication and spread of bananas …
… and says that bananas weren’t important to the first farmers of Central Africa.
New York Times blog dissects the climate change and agriculture paper that’s making waves.
But biodiversity loss is a bigger threat than climate change. No mention of ag; do these guys ever talk to one another?
In India, children of women who farm their own land are less malnourished.
So what if 11 plant species “account for 93 percent of all that humans eat”? Rachel Laudan thinks that fine, and I agree.
The patent on one of the Roundup-Ready genes is about to expire. So?