- Madagascar: Vintage photos, not-so-vintage photos.
- More photos, this time of state sandwiches. Yes, sandwiches.
- “The solutions to the problem of feeding people and protecting the planet are endlessly and irredeemably gray.” Pretty much the same argument I made recently, not quite so rudely.
- Training course on communicating the awesomeness of neglected species. How difficult can it be though, right?
- Keeping cats happy has a cost.
- Nifty vintage photos of California palms. The trees, people, the trees.
- Cowboys ain’t what they used to be. But only just.
- Gleaning deconstructed.
- IRRI opens exhibit on heirloom seeds, no doubt through gritted teeth.
- Ten potato genomes in the offing. Wait, doesn’t rice have like 3,000? Get it together, potato people.
- Renaissance watermelons looked really crappy. Probably tasted of something, though.
Tweeting up a storm in Minneapolis and Pullman
What did we do before Twitter? Had a life, probably. But also, it was undeniably more difficult to keep up to date with stuff. Absent heroic tweeps in Minneapolis, I would not have been able to follow Plant Biology 2015 quite so assiduously, and thus find out about, among many other things, the Legume Federation. Or indeed see their poster.
Likewise the annual meeting of the National Association of Plant Breeders would have slipped me by. And I would have missed this photo of two plant breeding legends.
#NAPB2015. Two giants of wheat breeding whose shoulders we all stand on. Bob Allen and Cal Qualset–great people!! pic.twitter.com/po6PPvmW5b
— UNL Small Grains Breeding- Frels Lab (@Huskerwheat) July 28, 2015
Orcadian bere in Canada shock
Beremeal is an earthy, nutty and nutrient-rich flour made from bere, an ancient six-row barley. It was traditionally used to make bannocks, soft rolls that are a speciality of Scotland’s north-eastern ilses, and now the only remaining mill to process this grain is in Orkney. The bere barley shaped the diets of Orcadians for generations, but came into sharp decline in the 1950s with the birth of white supermarket loaves. It was also less productive as modern barleys and required a lengthy milling process. By the early 1990s, the last remaining mill closed and bere almost entirely disappeared until a campaign was launched to bring bere back. Now, 200 tonnes are being milled today as people start to redisocover this ancient grain.
Hear all about it on the BBC’s Food Programme. Then head over to Genesys and reassure yourself that should these efforts fail, there are quite a few samples of “bere” in genebanks. Though those responsible for that of Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture may want to check some of the longitudes in their database.
Nibbles: Native American foods, Responsible soy maps, Ocean blue, Social academics, Kenyan vendors, Coffee pix, Local food takedown, Ancient horses, Kava bar, Plantae, Root fungi
- Traditional foods fight Native American obesity.
- Round Table on Responsible Soy makes some nice maps.
- The Decade for African Seas and Oceans is off to a blue start.
- Face it, academics, social media are good for you.
- You think Pres. Obama checked out some Nairobi street food?
- Pics of coffee value chain. Wow, that makes it sound really boring.
- Calling bullshit on farm to fork.
- A day in the life of an archeologist of Iron Age horses.
- Kava reaches NYC hipsters.
- Plantae is coming!
- Rice plants colonized by mychorriza express different genes and have more lateral roots.
Brainfood: Pepper tree conservation, Buckwheat diversity, Seed drying, Grape database, Livestock improvement, Soil bacterial diversity, TLB in Nigeria, Humans & diversity double, Faidherbia @ICRAF
- Genetic structure and internal gene flow in populations of Schinus molle (Anacardiaceae) in the Brazilian Pampa. Try to keep what forest patches remain. And link them up somehow.
- Genetic Diversity of Buckwheat Cultivars (Fagopyrum tartaricum Gaertn.) Assessed with SSR Markers Developed from Genome Survey Sequences. Two groups, overlapping in Qinghai, China.
- Increases in the longevity of desiccation-phase developing rice seeds: response to high-temperature drying depends on harvest moisture content. Genebanks may have it wrong for seeds of rice (and perhaps other tropical species) harvested while still metabolically active: these you can dry at higher temperatures than is the norm.
- Vitis International Variety Catalogue (VIVC): A cultivar database referenced by genetic profiles and morphology. Now with added microsatellites.
- Options for enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of research capacity for livestock genetics in, and for, sub-Saharan Africa. Embed in wider rural development, collaborate, and share data. Could apply to more than just livestock improvement.
- Mapping and validating predictions of bacterial biodiversity using European and national scale datasets. It’s the pH.
- Agricultural Extension Roles towards Adapting to the Effects of Taro Leaf Blight (Tlb) Disease in Nsukka Agricultural Zone, Enugu State. Basically, extensionists haven’t done a thing.
- Anthropogenic drivers of plant diversity: perspective on land use change in a dynamic cultural landscape. Abandoning farmland is not good for biodiversity.
- Agricultural landscapes and biodiversity conservation: a case study in Sicily (Italy). Ahem. Abandoning farmland is not good for biodiversity.
- Genetic diversity of Faidherbia albida (Del.) A. Chev accessions held at the World Agroforestry Centre. It’s not enough.