- Sweet potato cuttings to the rescue in Fiji. Hope there’s a nice mix of varieties.
- Quinoa: and so it begins.
- Filipinos not eating their fruits. Bad for Filipino health, no doubt bad for Filipino agrobiodiversity too.
- Maybe they should look to Cape Verde?
- ICARDA waxes poetic about lentils.
- Ecosystem services mapping projects go online. Or they will do, eventually. Just a survey for now. Should that include in situ CWR conservation projects? Now’s your chance to have your say.
Brainfood: Climate in Cameroon, Payments for Conservation, Finger Millet, GWAS, Populus genome, miRNA, C4, Cadastres, Orange maize, Raised beds, Contingent valuation, Wild edibles, Sorghum genomics, Brazilian PGR, Citrus genomics
- Climate and Food Production: Understanding Vulnerability from Past Trends in Africa’s Sudan-Sahel. Investment in smallholder farmers can reduce vulnerability, it says here.
- An evaluation of the effectiveness of a direct payment for biodiversity conservation: The Bird Nest Protection Program in the Northern Plains of Cambodia. It works, if you get it right; now can we see some more for agricultural biodiversity?
- Finger millet: the contribution of vernacular names towards its prehistory. You wouldn’t believe how many different names there are, or how they illuminate its spread.
- Genome-Wide Association Studies. How to do them. You need a platform with that?
- Revisiting the sequencing of the first tree genome: Populus trichocarpa. Why to do them.
- Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA. “…exogenous plant miRNAs in food can regulate the expression of target genes in mammals.” Nuff said. We just don’t understand how this regulation business works, do we.
- Anatomical enablers and the evolution of C4 photosynthesis in grasses. It’s the size of the vascular bundle sheath, stupid!
- Land administration for food security: A research synthesis. Administration meaning registration, basically. Can be good for smallholders, via securing tenure, at least in theory. Governments like it for other reasons, of course. However you slice it, though, the GIS jockeys need to get out more.
- Genetic Analysis of Visually Scored Orange Kernel Color in Maize. It’s better than yellow.
- Comment on “Ecological engineers ahead of their time: The functioning of pre-Columbian raised-field agriculture and its potential contributions to sustainability today” by Dephine Renard et al. Back to the future. Not.
- Environmental stratifications as the basis for national, European and global ecological monitoring. Bet it wouldn’t take much to apply it to agroecosystems for agrobiodiversity monitoring.
- Use of Contingent Valuation to Assess Farmer Preference for On-farm Conservation of Minor Millets: Case from South India. Fancy maths suggests farmers willing to receive money to grow crops.
- Wild food plant use in 21st century Europe: the disappearance of old traditions and the search for new cuisines involving wild edibles. The future is Noma.
- Population genomic and genome-wide association studies of agroclimatic traits in sorghum. Structuring by morphological race, and geography within races. Domestication genes confirmed. Promise of food for all held out.
- Response of Sorghum to Abiotic Stresses: A Review. Ok, it could be kinda bad, but now we have the above, don’t we.
- Genetic resources: the basis for sustainable and competitive plant breeding. In Brazil, that is.
- A nuclear phylogenetic analysis: SNPs, indels and SSRs deliver new insights into the relationships in the ‘true citrus fruit trees’ group (Citrinae, Rutaceae) and the origin of cultivated species. SNPs better than SSRs in telling taxa apart. Results consistent with taxonomic subdivisions and geographic origin of taxa. Some biochemical pathway and salt resistance genes showing positive selection. No doubt this will soon lead to tasty, nutritious varieties that can grow on beaches.
Nibbles: Rice farming, Funny teas, Funny fruits, Christmas fare, Online course, Seasonal genomes, Malaysia shares, School shares
- The most beautiful rice farm in the world. No, wait.
- Jasmine tea gets protection. But does it need it? Let’s ask the South Africans what they’re doing with their tea.
- Today’s funny fruit picture. Think it’s one of these Cuban mutants?
- How many micronutrients in a Mexican Christmas dinner? And how many in a British one, featuring parsnips of course.
- People’s University has online Appreciation Programme on Sustainable Management of Biodiversity starting January 2013.
- First farmers were first carpenters.
- And today’s genome story is very seasonally appropriate. Oh no, here’s another one!
- Malaysia implements the ITPGRFA. Cool, but why is that even news?
- School sends okra seeds to Haiti. But… No, I’m not playing the Grinch on this one, it’s too sweet.
Nibbles: Manioc gastronomy, Wilting revolution, Turrialba cheese, Conservation and poverty, Beans breeding, Dye plants, Plant Cuttings, Amazon fires, Balm, African silver bullets, Heritage food, Potato politics, Native seed meet
- Cassava gets a makeover in Brazil. And another, of a different kind, in East Africa.
- Revolution turns into Terror. Where’s our Napoleon?
- Designating Costa Rican cheese.
- Conserving poverty?
- No poverty for bean breeders in the US.
- The uses of Oregon Grape. Which is of course not a grape.
- Chaffey Style.
- Coconut water is a major conservation issue for 2013. It says here.
- Fewer farmers, more fires. In the Amazon. It says here.
- Yeah, what is balsam anyway?
- So the Next Big Thing in African ag development is agricultural growth corridors. What could possibly go wrong? Will they learn from wildlife corridors? Will they be using these four apparently key technologies? Or bolstering extension? And will it all mean a decrease in bush meat consumption?
- Heritage foods book. Yummie.
- Like potatoes in Peru, I guess. And various street foods in West Africa.
- Conference on native seed use in the US. Probably even some crop wild relatives in there.
Brainfood: Core collections, Romanian pigs, Commons, Valuation, Biofortification, Yam characterization, Pompeii diet, Rice grain genetics
- Maximizing genetic differentiation in core collections by PCA-based clustering of molecular marker data. It works. In simulations, to be fair.
- Study of rare traditional pork breeds concerning the aspect of biodiversity conservation. Mangalitsa is what you want, apparently.
- Open Variety Rights: Rethinking the Commodification of Plants. A “protected commons”? Sounds a bit like the ITPGRFA to me.
- Natural and cultural heritage in mountain landscapes: towards an integrated valuation. Yeah, but does your cultural heritage include things like agricultural biodiversity?
- Fortifying plants with the essential amino acids lysine and methionine to improve nutritional quality. Conventional breeding hasn’t worked. But has it been for want of trying? Just askin’.
- Genetic and phenotypic diversity in a germplasm working collection of cultivated tropical yams (Dioscorea spp.). Relationships among species, synonyms, duplicates, yada yada.
- Roman food refuse: urban archaeobotany in Pompeii, Regio VI, Insula 1. Romans ate a Mediterranean diet. Still no cure for cancer.
- Genetic bases of rice grain shape: so many genes, so little known. Why bother? Just askin’.