- India tree planter tells BBC his story. But what species?
- Photoessay on Irish farm, begorrah!
- The next rubber boom?
- A “modern-day Johnny Appleseed for ash trees.”
- Qur’anic Botanical Garden established in Qatar.
- Egyptians regret pig cull.
Nibbles: Museums
- Natural history collections important in monitoring biodiversity and engaging public interest. Well I never.
Nibbles: Indian potatoes, IUCN report, Climate change and disease
- The history of the potato at Shimla.
- Lots of Mediterranean mammals in trouble, including wild relatives of domesticated species.
- SciDev rounds up the science on climate change and diseases. Human diseases, that is, but much also applies to those of crops and livestock.
Norman Borlaug R.I.P.
Agriculture pioneer Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, dies at 95.
War of the roses
The oldest written testimony of the use of roses by humans originates from Mesopotamia. In the royal graves of Uruk, the cultural centre of the Sumerians (now ruins called Warka, in southern Iraq), Sir Leonard Wolley found cuneiform-script texts reporting on warfare by Sargon of Akkad (24th century BC) whose empire reached from western Persia to Asia Minor. Akkad crossed the Taurus mountains and brought back grapevines, figs, and roses…