- What’s the difference between pluots and plumcots? By the guy who wrote the book.
- ACIAR publication on village chickens, and another. Thanks, DAD-Net.
- Modeling the axolotl, the edible Mexican salamander, before it’s too late.
- Artisanal fishing data. Via.
- USDA looking to expand its fruit collection to cope with climate change. NOt the only ones, I imagine.
- Danes stamp on allotments. No, wait. Allotments on Danish stamps.
- Aussies find genetic marker for hornless cattle that will jump on barbie by themselves.
- Breeding better Artemisia annua.
- The diversity of farmer-managed aquatic systems in SE Asia.
- 15% of angiosperm speciation events are accompanied by ploidy increase. Much more in domesticated species, I bet.
Nibbles: Gardening, Maple syrup, Farming and conservation, Late blight, Urban guerrilla, Bizarre produce, Russian food, Aquaculture, Heirloom apples, Turkish medicinal plants, Bee-eating hornets
- NY Botanical Garden launches summer Edible Garden celebration.
- Thingy for getting more syrup out of maples invented.
- Farmer floods his fields on purpose.
- Insights into tomato late-blight resistance. Do try and keep up!
- A very English guerrilla gardener.
- Pictures of weird fruits and vegetables.
- Russian starters. Uhm, I spot a trend.
- The future of aquaculture: giant robotic roaming cages.
- Saving California’s Sebastopol Gravenstein apple.
- “Zeytinburnu Medicinal Plant Garden, opened in 2005, is Turkey’s first and only medicinal plant garden.”
- Something else has it in for bees: Chinese hornets.
Bolivians going back to their roots
I blogged a couple years ago about what might be called the “1491 controversy,” which hinges on whether you think the Amazon and adjacent areas were densely populated and closely managed before Columbus arrived, or an unproductive, largely pristine wilderness. One of the areas in question is the basin of the Beni River in Bolivia. Whatever your stand on the 1491 debate, it is undeniable that the Beni is a heavily modified landscape.
Shallow floodwaters cover much of the low-lying lands in the Llanos de Moxos during part of the rainy season. The rest of the year, dry conditions prevail and water is scarce. The alternation between seasonal flooding and seasonal drought, combined with poor soil conditions and lack of drainage, make farming in these areas difficult. The ancient inhabitants of the area created an agricultural landscape to solve these problems and make the area highly productive. They constructed a system of raised fields, or large planting surfaces of earth elevated above the seasonally flooded savannas and wetlands. Experiments have shown that the raised fields improve soil conditions and provide localized drainage and the means for water management, nutrient production, and organic recycling.
Well, Bolivian researchers are now suggesting that farmers return to these “camellones,” or raised fields, to harness the seasonal flooding, rather than succumbing to its depredatioons. Oxfam is supporting the project. The BBC was there.
If, as predicted by many experts, the cycles of El Niño/La Niña are going to increase in intensity and frequency, then the project has the capacity to help poor families cope better with the extreme weather events and unpredictable rainfall that are to come.
It would also allow them to cut down on fertilizers, and dabble in aquaculture. There is some scepticism, which has to do with the necessary investment in time and effort. But early results show gains in productivity, apparently, although it’s unclear from the BBC article what exactly is being compared. Anyway, there is much optimism.
This process could be repeated in various parts of the world with similar conditions to the Beni like parts of Bangladesh, India and China.
In the words of local farmer Maira Salas: “We are only just now learning how our ancestors lived and survived.” Well, yes, but with a difference. Some of the crops that are been grown in the camellones are exotic, which is fine, of course. But will there also be a revival of neglected traditional indigenous crops?
Nibbles: Seed travels, Carotenoids in cucumbers, Tea and hibiscus, Sea level rise, Tewolde on climate change, SPGRC
- After a year’s travel in search of seeds, Adam Forbes turns in his report.
- The genetics of orange-fleshed cucumbers elucidated.
- Tea and hibiscus booze.
- Video of honey harvesting.
- Maps of sea level rise. All somewhat unsatisfying, somehow.
- “Because we are poor, we shall suffer first but, ultimately, we shall all die together.”
- SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre (SPGRC) director Paul Munyenyembe does the public awareness thing.
Nibbles: Cacao, Soil mapping, Rice terraces, Maize, Cereus
- “USDA’s Bourlaug International Science Fellows Program has partnered with non-profit and for-profit organizations to identify new agricultural techniques for cocoa cultivation and to control cocoa diseases.” And do some conservation and breeding, surely.
- Big shots call for a decent global digital soil map. Seconded.
- Cool photos of rice agricultural landscapes.
- Roasting maize, Mexico style. Oh yeah, there’s also a nifty new maize mapping population out.
- Peruvian apple cactus doing just fine in Israel.