In situ

Nibbles: Indigenous conservation, Rice and conservation, Amazon medicines, Organic products, Sustainable oysters, Cherfas at Seed Savers, Calestous Juma, Cassava website, Israeli agritech, Fragaria breeding, Catacol whitebeam, Weather sensors, FAO Commission & Conference, Amartya Sen

A toolkit to help indigenous communities do conservation. Should they need one.
On the other hand… Half of Japan’s endangered species hotspots are found in satoyama, which are under pressure. Compare and contrast with rice farming in Thailand.
Learn all about some medicinal plants of the Amazon, minus their scientific names. Not including runa tea. Lots of other opportunities out there, though.
Maybe even including oysters.
Jeremy no doubt to feast on the mollusc after spilling the beans on the EU seed regulations at the Seed Savers jamboree.
Wonder what Calestous Juma thinks of those regulations.
But I bet he (and his father, who introduced the crop to his region of Kenya) would like this cassava website to rule them all.
The Volcani Institute‘s gifts to the world…
…probably include new strawberries, but not this one.
Scientists straining, failing to find plant to meaningfully compare to the giant panda.
Bioversity does up its iButtons.
And gets a namecheck in a paean to the FAO Commission on GRFA on its 30th birthday. All this FAO stuff is because its Conference is on this week. I don’t suppose any of it will be more important than Amartya Sen’s speech.

Diversity and heritability of the maize rhizosphere microbiome under field conditions. There’s a lot of it, but only measured in inbreds so far. One wonders about landraces.
The Vulnerability of Biodiversity to Rapid Climate Change. We should focus on increasing the adaptive capacity of species and ecosystems, but predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
The Capsella rubella genome and the genomic consequences of rapid mating system evolution. Sex is better with two.
Progress Toward Understanding Heterosis in Crop Plants & Genomic and epigenetic insights into the molecular bases of heterosis. It’s the allelic interactions, stupid. Now to make use of this.
Deforestation in an African biodiversity hotspot: Extent, variation and the effectiveness of protected areas. Protected areas have worked for the evergreen forest, but don’t forget the miombo! Would be intersting to know what this all means for crop wild relatives.
Comprehensive genotyping of the USA national maize inbred seed bank. Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen the future of genebanks.

Cultivate medicinal trees to save them. Oh, and provide medicines.
Or you could harvest them sustainably from sacred forests?
Reef fished out? Aquaculture to the rescue. Sounds a bit like the aquatic equivalent of the above, no? But do they have sea cucumbers and their poop in those inland ponds?
Growing diverse crops good for bees, good for crops. Buckwheat diverse enough for ya?

Bhogpur farmer Subash Chander Misra gets Plant Genome Savior Farmer award 2012 for pear conservation.
While a whole farming system gets protected in Kerala.
Hope it doesn’t go the way of protected areas in Guatemala. Maybe they need old mobile phones. Or a better roads or urban expansion dataset. Or maybe just their own maps.
UK government puts money where mouth is with grant to HarvestPlus. For things like this from ICRISAT. And have you seen the BBC slideshow?
Funnily enough, nobody talking about guinea pigs as a solution for malnutrition.
How Australian agriculture improved its water use efficiency. Clue: it’s not one thing. Good to be reminded, yet again, that’s it’s not necessarily always and only about the diversity. Keeps us centred.
Bees get a bank?
The de-extinction debate rumbles on. Centred, did someone say?

Companies should pay to protect ecosystems.
Like these? Hope they include some agricultural ones. Maybe even urban ones.
Why you’d want to is not least because of these plants. Which can be better for micronutrients. Not to mention mainly outcrossing.
Yeah, not all species are equal. Right?
I wonder if any of this philanthropic training money will go to work on rice wild relatives.