- 5th Global Botanic Gardens Congress coming up in Dunedin, New Zealand. Isn’t that somewhere near the Shire? And one garden’s engagement with agricultural biodiversity.
- “It’s 2050, and Australia’s bounteous wheat harvest has been saved.” You see, as a total amateur at this lark, I’d have started with that.
- Loren Rieseberg, interviewed.
- HarvestChoice using fancy remote sensing imagery to improve crop calendars, give themselves excuse to quote Byrds classic.
- European rye collection a little closer to reality.
- WorldVeg turns 40.
- Bellon and Ntandou-Bouzitou explore the tail. Talk about local innovation…
- Old friends talk about crop wild relatives.
Nibbles: Hunger, Food surplus, Bananas not killing crocs, Overpopulation matters, NUS 2013, Berry go Round, Call for articles, Wild cabbage
- How to solve world hunger, eat a new report.
- Or send them the UK’s surplus oats and wheat.
- Our friend Anne Vezina lets the reptiles of the press have it right between the eyes: Crocs and banana plantations: What the media missed.
- And Erik Hammar is peeved about a New York Times op-ed pooh poohing the problem of overpopulation.
- Glad we’re not too late to point you to the write-up of the 1st day of the NUS 2013 conference. More to come?
- There’s a new Berry go Round botany blog carnival up, with nothing of agricultural interest. I guess we missed the call for content. Again.
- Farming Matters wants your articles on agricultural biodiversity.
- In a cabbage taste test, wild is best.
Brainfood: Extinct breeds, Olive breeding, Wild peanuts, Conserving dates, Hazelnut diversity, Religion, & biodiversity, Parqe de la Papa, Maize flowering, Mozambique watermelon, Nigerian cocoyam processing
- Cattle Breeds: Extinction or Quasi-Extant? Many supposedly extinct breeds live on in the genome of others.
- Evaluation of the need and present potential of olive breeding indicating the nature of the available genetic resources involved. If you want to intensify olive production, and apparently you do, you need to breed for it.
- Characterization of Brazilian accessions of wild Arachis species of section Arachis (Fabaceae) using heterochromatin detection and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Cytogenetics still has something to contribute.
- Complementary Strategy for Conservation of Date Palm Germplasm. Sets out the options well enough, their pros and cons, but doesn’t give you what you really need, a clear idea of which germplasm to conserve how, where. Which I submit was not too much to ask for.
- Molecular and morphological diversity of on-farm hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) landraces from southern Europe and their role in the origin and diffusion of cultivated germplasm. 3 primary centres of diversity, plus a couple of secondary ones. Spain and Italy have one of each.
- Biodiversity priority areas and religions—a global analysis of spatial overlap. It’s all up to the Vatican. What could possibly go wrong?
- Situating In Situ: A Critical Geography of Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation in the Peruvian Andes and Beyond. In other news, the Parque de la Papa has epistemological implications.
- Adaptation of Maize to Temperate Climates: Mid-Density Genome-Wide Association Genetics and Diversity Patterns Reveal Key Genomic Regions, with a Major Contribution of the Vgt2 (ZCN8) Locus. It takes a lot of genes.
- Genetic differentiation of watermelon landraces in Mozambique using microsatellite markers. Type of use is more important than geography in explaining genetic diversity.
- Extending the use of an underutilised tuber I: Physicochemical and pasting properties of cocoyam (Xanthosoma sagittifolium) flour and its suitability for making biscuits. Let them eat cocoyam biscuits.
Nibbles: Treaty shindig, Manure app, Bambara groundnut, SSE
- The Oman Observer on the opening of the 5th meeting of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). Nice rhino horn dagger handle, dude!
- For real news, though, you need to be following #itgb5.
- You know all that stuff about mobile phones being the future of farming? Manure!
- Here’s another thing we missed. The 3rd International Bambara groundnut Workshop, yesterday. ‘Spect someone will write it up, eventually.
- Mother Earth News loves it up for Decorah, Iowa, home of Seed Savers Exchange.
David Lobell a certified “genius”
Massive congratulations to David Lobell for being awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.