No sooner do we nibble a scientific paper describing how traditional transhumance supports ecosystems, and in particular vulture populations, than the EU parliament passes legislation allowing farmers to leave carcasses on their land. It’s great to be heard in Brussels!
In praise of Granny Smith
Our regular readers ((And indeed Danny’s at Rurality.)) will know that there’s been a regular deluge — windfall? — of apple stories in the past few months, in particular about the imminent demise of the British orchard. The latest surfaced today. In such stories, aspersions are often cast on the qualities of such commercial favourites as the Granny Smith. ((Thanks to Dr Nelson for getting me onto this kick today, and also for a nice website about apples.)) I guess the unspoken implication is that this and similarly successful varieties are the evil spawn of some sinister multinational, and probably contain, to boot, genes cruelly extracted from some Arctic fish without its prior or informed consent and unnaturally inserted into the pristine apple genome by soulless pointy-headed boffins with Nazi sympathies.
Nothing could be further from the truth, it turns out, at least in the case of the Granny Smith, which was, in fact, spotted as a seedling and first grown by Maria Ann Smith on her farm in Ryde, New South Wales around 1868. ((As a short article in FreshPlaza alerted me, also today.)) It started life as the kind of backyard variety that would later become known as a heirloom. So, I ask myself, what obscure pome, currently languishing in some forgotten British orchard, soon to be rescued by the imminent influx of National Trust money, will eventually knock old Granny from her pedestal? And when will we be complaining about that one?
Nibbles: Aurochs, Medicinal plant, New species, Orchards, Imprecations
- Nazi cattle invade Britain. Are they the ones that have been sequenced? I think we should be told.
- ICIPE helps Kenyan farmers domesticate hangover cure plant.
- New, useless acacia found. No word on who lost it in first place.
- Yet another plea to save the effing British orchard.
- Hunter-Gatherer-Sculptor. “I got your imprecations right here,” says Jeremy.
- Razib rounds up horses.
Nibbes: Nettles, Rivers, Rare species, Library, Afghanistan protected area, Nordic-Baltic-Russian collaboration, Photos, Disease
- George Orwell scythes nettles, then seeks uses.
- World’s rivers in trouble. Also other wetlands the world over. CWRs to be affected, along with everything else?
- Let’s not get too hung up about rarity.
- UNESCO launches World Digital Library. Gotta be some agrobiodiversity in there somewhere, surely. Yes indeedy.
- Afghanistan’s first national park has some livestock wild relatives!
- Circum-Baltic collaboration on genetic resources conservation.
- Mongabay.com publishes lots of cool pictures of biodiversity to celebrate Earth Day yesterday. So does The Big Picture, even some vaguely farming ones. And Adam Forbes has just loaded a bunch of photos too. Luigi comments: Why didn’t we do the same for agrobiodiversity?
- Tuberculosis and domestication. Not.
GRAIN on IRRI
I suppose GRAIN’s video slideshow on IRRI and its genebank was meant as a bit of a takedown. ((Thanks to Eliseu for the tip.)) But actually it works very well as a plea for comprehensive, complementary genetic resources management strategies, encompassing both ex situ and in situ, genebanks and farmers, conservation and use. And as such I choose to approach it.