- Using biodiversity to link agricultural productivity with environmental quality: Results from three field experiments in Iowa. Diversify any way you can. Even in Iowa.
- Improving conservation planning for semi-natural grasslands: Integrating connectivity into agri-environment schemes. Connect any way you can. Even in Europe.
- Early millet use in northern China. Very early. Starch grains push broomcorn millet use in China back 1,000 years, and foxtail millet 2,000.
- Paleolithic human exploitation of plant foods during the last glacial maximum in North China. And ten thousand years before millets, there were wild grasses, roots, tubers and gourds.
- Draft genome of the wheat A-genome progenitor Triticum urartu. Can be used to find agronomically important genes. But settle down, it’s only one of the 3 wheat genomes, after all.
- Aegilops tauschii draft genome sequence reveals a gene repertoire for wheat adaptation. Not so fast, here comes the D genome too…
- Side-effects of plant domestication: ecosystem impacts of changes in litter quality. Domestication led to higher quality, more easily decomposed litter.
- Crop wild relatives from the Arabian Peninsula. 400 of them.
- Compositional Characterization of Native Peruvian Chili Peppers (Capsicum spp.). There’s much variation, but not that much.
- Feeding the world: genetically modified crops versus agricultural biodiversity. Guess which one is drinking the other’s milkshake. And a similar blast from the past.
Nibbles: Agroforestry, Genomics conference, Weed propagation, Potato gene, Potato Bean, Seeds, Chilli breeding, University, Prize, Arroz etc, Sinai, Maple syrup, Raw milk, Cacao
It’s Easter. A bigger than usual haul to see you safely through the lean times ahead.
- Simons says, plant a tree. And here’s how.
- FAO had an e-conference on “Impacts of genomics and other ‘omics’ for the crop, forestry, livestock, fishery and agro-industry sectors in developing countries” and all I got was this pdf.
- I personally think The Dude would prefer seeds.
- That potato day-length gene paper deconstructed. A bit.
- Owen’s
Potato beanhopniss seeds have sprouted. Can a new variety be far away? - No doubt he’ll be contributing to a list of US seed suppliers for perennial veg.
- There are perennial peppers, you know. A new weapon as the pepper breeding wars heat up?
- And enthusiasm for Kerala Agricultural University cools down.
- “Attention responsible gene stewards!” You had me at Attention. (But you lost me at responsible gene stewards.) On the other hand, if you are “diligent about developing or releasing durable varieties that will ensure long-term global wheat security” stick with it.
- Arroz, trigo, maíz y patata. The usual story: Casi todos los esfuerzos de la Revolución Verde se han enfocado hacia la mejora de los denominados cultivos principales.
- Farming in the Sinai is 5000 years older than it used to be.
- How to get genuine maple syrup.
- Raw milk is fine. No it’s not.
- Nestle and Mars commit to equality for women cocoa farmers. Mondelēz has not yet responded to Oxfam-inspired consumer pressure. Perhaps because few people know they’re Cadbury and Suchard and Toberlone and … what’s with that stupid ē anyway?
Enjoy that Creme Egg!
Yes, we have no banana statistics
My … hope is that people will eventually stop saying ‘bananas and plantains’. For one thing, it only makes sense is if the meaning of ‘banana’ is restricted to dessert bananas and the meaning of ‘plantain’ extended to all cooking bananas.
This, as you might imagine, is music to my ears. We’ve searched in vain, and often, and fruitlessly 1 for some kind of shibboleth to distinguish banana from plantain. There isn’t one. So to have the ProMusa blog standing up to be counted, again, is definitely something to welcome. And that’s not all.
In addition to taking aim at terminological inexactitude, our colleague-in-arms Anne Vezina, the blogger in question, also has a go at numerical fudge, with an attack on the “mythical fourth place ranking” of bananas on some ill-defined metric of global importance. Digging deep into FAOSTAT, she concludes:
Depending on the indicator and the year, bananas usually end up somewhere between the 8th and 10th position after discarding animal products and non-food crop commodities (adding plantains doesn’t change the ranking). But if instead of including all the banana-producing countries, only the least developed ones are considered, adding the values for plantains and bananas moves the duo up to fourth place, behind rice, cassava (instead of wheat) and maize.
The facts have spoken. Will anybody listen?
Nibbles: Cucurbits, Climate change cuisine, Passover pulses, Quinoa grant, Sago network
- The botanist in the kitchen takes on the diversity of squashes. And pumpkins. And some gourds. So we don’t have to.
- Aren’t you glad we’re here to tell you that “Potato Beans” are Apios americana? Why do we even link to this stuff?
- Split peas split Jewish communities. Because it allows us to have fun.
- Like this: USDA grant condemns Bolivian peasants to eternal poverty but better nutrition.
- I see your allegedly neglected crop and raise you a really neglected one.
Nibbles: SRI, Zoophagy, Dogfood, Wetlands, Peach DNA
- More than you ever needed to know about SRI. Not just rice.
- Ditto eating the zoo. In 1879.
- Ditto the diversity of dogfood. There isn’t much, beneath the palatants.
- Ditto moving agriculture into wetlands. It’s risky.
- Ditto how very useful it will be to have the peach genome. For biofuels, natch.