History – Page 276 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

September 24, 2009September 24, 2009

A story of agrobiodiversity and agglomeration from Scotland

Dundee was Juteopolis? Who knew.

September 22, 2009September 22, 2009

Nibbles: Seed Hunter, Seed catalogs, Trees

Seed Hunter “undaunted.” So that’s all right then.
Smithsonian puts old seed catalogs online. Very cool.
By all means plant trees, especially on farms, but a plantation is not a rainforest.

September 19, 2009September 20, 2009

Nibbles: Tree planting, Farm photos, Dandelion rubber, Ash trees, Qatar garden, Cairo cull

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.

September 16, 2009

Nibbles: Museums

Natural history collections important in monitoring biodiversity and engaging public interest. Well I never.

September 15, 2009September 15, 2009

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.

1. Swapping maize for indigenous crops won’t fix African food systems designed around markets and policies that still favour a narrow range of crops.
2. Cassava is both a food security fallback and a commercial crop in Uganda, but disease, climate change and declining diversity make its conservation an increasingly urgent form of insurance. But what about the markets and policies?
3. When livestock and crops fail, Ugandan pastoralists draw on wild plants for food, underlining how much food-system resilience still sits outside the formal agricultural system, with its markets and policies.
4. The Morton Arboretum is using living collections and genetic research to help the threatened butternut tree cope with changing conditions.
5. Webinar discusses global approaches to seed provenancing and transfer zones, useful for anyone who wants to move native plants without moving the wrong genes. Butternut very interested.
6. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo preserves genetic material of plant and animal species that may disappear, from DNA to cells to organisms. Butternut volunteers.
7. New Indian facility combines ex situ fish conservation with community aquaculture. Good model for much of the above?
Published on October 6, 2026