- Why did the Chinese chicken cross the road? To get a new date. For domestication, that is.
- The Indian Farmer is actually three, millet-wise.
- USDA wades into specialty crops. Wonder if one of them is baobab, and a factsheet is involved. Or “small scale grains” for that matter.
- “Life in the countryside is hard.” But fear not, FAO is on it.
- Forests are not migrating. Species are actually undergoing range contraction at both ends. Well that’s weird.
- The first pheasant extinction? Say it ain’t so.
- I like pictures of old trees. So sue me.
- Jess stops traffic.
- Tour a cocoa genebank. Could this catch on?
- International Conference on Climate Change and Food Security (ICCCFS). Not hot air.
The pomegranate in Armenia
The pomegranate is everywhere in Armenia. And I don’t mean just in the markets. A famous film is named after the fruit. Tea and wine are made from it. And its image features on everything from church walls to tourist souvenirs. I suppose it goes back to pre-Christian mythology, in which it was a symbol of fertility and abundance — something to do with the belief that each fruit contained exactly 365 seeds, perhaps. Anyway, here’s a compendium of pomegranate iconography from my recent trip. Couldn’t get much information on diversity, I’m afraid, how much there is of it and to what extent it is endangered. Something for the next time.
Nibbles: Livestock films, Sea cucumbers, Plant collecting, Nutritional composition, Intensification, Mongolian pastoralists, Low resource tolerance
- More livestock films than you can shake a stick at.
- The Consortium all at sea.
- Road trip! Herbarium specimen collecting in Nepal.
- Call for nutritional composition data on the staples of Papua New Guinea.
- Wanna intensify agriculture in the highlands of East Africa? Here comes the PowerPoint.
- The Tragedy of the Commons averted in Mongolia through collective action.
- A new approach to functional traits? I don’t see the difference myself, but I’ll take their word for it.
Brainfood: Indian domestication, Canna domestication, Indigenous knowledge, Sunflower history, Diets and diversity, Immature grains
- Finding Plant Domestication in the Indian Subcontinent. Maybe five independent centers of domestication, but maybe not. It’s complicated.
- The Origin of Southeastern Asian Triploid Edible Canna (Canna discolor Lindl.) Revealed by Molecular Cytogenetical Study. It’s simple. C. indica var. indica and C. plurituberosa.
- Diversity of Plant Knowledge as an Adaptive Asset: A Case Study with Standing Rock Elders. You’d be amazed what they know. It’s diverse.
- Morphometric Analysis of Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) Achenes from Mexico and Eastern North America. It’s interesting. Size is a better descriptor than computerized shape analysis.
- A Systematic Review on the Contributions of Edible Plant and Animal Biodiversity to Human Diets. It’s lacking; there isn’t nearly as much good evidence as you might expect.
- Experimental approaches to understanding variation in grain size in Panicum miliaceum (broomcorn millet) and its relevance for interpreting archaeobotanical assemblages. It’s misleading. You need to make allowances for immature grains.
Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here.
Nibbles: Vigna umbellata, Afghanistan wheat catalogue, Pingali, Camptotheca, Water stress, Organic Farming for Health and Prosperity
- Crops for the Future finds a nice ricebean project.
- The wheats of Afghanistan.
- A former ICRISAT intern speaks. The world listens.
- Collecting the Happy Tree of China.
- Global water stress maps. Does CCAFS know? Or care?
- Rodale hearts organic.