History

Nibbles: Elm disease, Kew genebank, Maize domestication, Wildlife vs livestock, Medieval figs, Alternative food security, Spineless lulo, Mangos for Haiti, Aubergine breeding, Urban ag in Japan, West African research

“Beginning in the late 1990s, Kock travelled throughout Ontario collecting twigs of seemingly healthy mature elms, in what amounted to an elm dating service.”
“…a curated inventory of miscellaneous interestingness” lands on the Millennium Seed Bank. Hilarity ensues.
What do hopscotch, architecture and maize have in common?
Zebras good for cattle.
The fig deconstructed.
“Improve yields through crop diversity…” ??? Who are these people?
Crops for the Future bemoans the loss of “a spineless variety of Solanum quitoense.” Someone, somewhere must still have it, surely.
Mangos: Haiti’s new best friend?
Home-bred eggplants. Or aubergines.
“Urban agriculture in Japan, cultivating sustainability and well being.” Again? Still?
West Africa to get bunch of specialist biotechnology centres for crop improvement. No word on where the existing national genebanks fit in. Nor, ahem, what role IITA, ICRISAT and the other CGIAR Centres are going to play in all this.

Baobab: your favourite nutritious neglected species for the next 10 seconds.
Nigel Chaffey’s fresh selection of Plant Cuttings is up.
Which reminds me; don’t forget to submit to Berry go Round.
Searching for lost apples in the Scottish Highlands. A job for mountain rescue?
Why feed my cow? A more interesting question than it seems.
Rangeland scientists take photos of their study sites shock. Applications for crop wild relatives? Bound to be.
Glad to give my friend Seniorl Anzu at NARI in PNG a plug for his new(ish) blog, PNG-Agrinews.
Wageningen solves that cow burping problem.
Cambridge says I see your cow burps and raise you food security.

G20 nations turn to agricultural research for food security. All you need to know.
Would it be worth updating Borlaug on organics? A Prinz says “Yes!”
Rhizowen gets oca to grow seed to seed. Can Cornish “potatoes” be far behind?
Is it cassava‘s time?
Molecular taxonomy helps an allergy sufferer.
Lagging behind in development? Maybe you’re too diverse. Or not diverse enough. Difficult, in either case, to envisage the solutions.
Agfax podcast on orange sweet potato in Uganda. Comment on the kuroiler goes for this too.

Mexicans can’t afford avocados.
“Vostok — delo tonkoe, Petrukha!“
New blog on crop wild relatives in the US, courtesy of our friend Colin.
Royal villa has nice garden shock.
“Three-quarters of date palm trees in Iraq right now … are of just one variety.”

This Pyrus calleryana tree, a wild relative of the pear, is now back at the World Trade Center, and has even survived Hurricane Irene. On this day, we salute it.