- Mini-cows: Cheaper by the pound, but more expensive by the head.
- Lebanese icon imperilled.
- Birds protect coffee from coffee berry borer.
- Cows (m)aligned. Via.
- Jessica discovers millet and a grain bank (food, not seed).
- A new disease threatens citrus in Florida. Yay!
Sweet potato power
It seems that Usain’s Bolt’s Olympic success is down to yams. That would be sweet potatoes?
Later: Nope, the yams in question are, in fact, yams. See comments.
Masanobu Fukuoka R.I.P.
Masanobu Fukuoka, the author of The One Straw Revolution, and a pioneer of “natural” or no-till farming, has passed away at 95.
Nibbles for the road: Baobab, Breeding, Gardening, Earthworms, Taro, Pollinators, Llama, Trees, Chili peppers
- More on how the baobab is coming to Europe.
- Review of breeding for nutritionally improved crops.
- Book on the origins of British gardening.
- Earthworms “modulate the competition between grasses and legumes.”
- ACIAR publishes book on taro pests in the Pacific.
- UNEP launches global pollinator conservation initiative.
- Unusual use for livestock fetuses.
- “And she grows more than 100 types of trees…“
- “Along the equator, without access to refrigeration, you could be dead pretty quickly unless you can find a way to protect yourself against the microbes you ingest every day.”
Tules to the rescue
Not particularly inspiring at first glance, but then I googled “tule,” a word I hand’t come across before. I figured cattails would be some kind of Thypha. Tules turn out to be types of sedges, although some people seem to use the words interchangeably, or indeed together. Anyway, tules have an interesting ethnobotany in the American Southwest, along with other geophytes.