- The vocabulary of the commons.
- An interview with Tom Wagner, a great tomato and potato breeder.
- The CGIAR Consortium has a newsletter, with bits in it about what they’re doing on agrobiodiversity, genebanks (such as this one), all that stuff. But I guess news of this big Africa-wide food security project came in too late. Oh, here’s another one, on ICRISAT’s new chickpea.
- Pat Heslop-Harrison on domestication. I am reliably informed he once extracted DNA from a fruit smoothie using nothing but household utensils and cleaning chemicals. Pat, is there a video?
- Urban ag in the Philippines. For some reason, there’s been a ton of this sort of urban food stuff on the tubes lately. Like this for instance. And this (compare current orchards in London with historical ones). I may just have to blog about it. Oh dear, I just have.
- The Glasgow Herald heralds the importance of Vavilov’s potatoes.
- Long post with lots of different bits of info on lots of perennial crops.
- Monitoring drought in Africa via pretty maps. And more pretty maps in search of a use.
- Ancient Aegean lathyrism? Dirk alerted.
- A keeper of seeds does his stuff near Pittsburgh.
Nibbles: Erna Bennett film, Phytophilosophy, Agroecology, Lawsuit, Sesame, Prize, Svalbard
- GRAIN found and shared a 1986 Canadian documentary that includes interviews with Erna Bennett.
- “Critical minds and ‘vegetal life’.” Plants and philosophy. Wacky, yes. But perhaps of interest.
- Are you near Port Townsend, WA? Go hear a lecture on “Farming with Nature: Agroecology for the Olympic Peninsula” on Monday at 7.30.
- While the EU potentially gives diversity a break, the US judge rejects organic suit against Monsanto.
- Open sesame (yeah, I know). Oxfam documents how best to use sesame to lift Ethiopians out of poverty.
- Nominate someone who has “made outstanding contributions for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity at global, regional or local levels” for the Midori Prize. We’re available.
- The Atlantic and NPR do the Svalbard thing. Gotta hand it to the Trust.
Berry go Round No. 49
Bora Zivkovic at Blog Around the Clock hosts the latest Berry go Round blog carnival, with botanical news of all sorts. There is much there of interest to us, including longer pieces on items we merely Nibbled. Like the utility of myrrh trees and the story of Maasai reconciliation grass, which some sheep could have told whoever named it thus wasn’t a grass. Wonder if it gets crushed when elephants fight? There’s a new orchid that smells of Chanel No. 5 (but not, apparently, of ylang-ylang). Bitter almond essence, an instructional video for blowflies, and wild licorice round out the picture, but there’s a lot more there to explore.
Thanks Bora. Next month’s carnival will be hosted by Greg Laden. Submit here, and why not volunteer to host?
Nibbles: Sunflowers, Gardens, Cassava, Gates, History
- Everything you need to know about sunflowers, as it happens. They’re not cassava.
- New York Botanical Gardens has a climate change garden. Coupla apples mentioned, no other food, not even cassava.
- Cassava, “the Rambo of food crops,” will save the world. Did Rambo use silver bullets?
- The Center for Global Development thinks Bill Gates is the cassava of agriculture. No, wait …
- JStor Plant Biology rounds up his favourite historical food papers. Cassava absent
Five peas in a pod
So, just to recap, that Afghan pea accession with resistance to a couple of different strains of Peronospora viciae (which causes downy mildew):
PS 998 = WBH 2126 (Plant Breeding Institution, Weibullsholm, Landskrona) = NGB 102126 = ATC 2432 (Australian Temperate Field Crops Collection, Horsham) = PI 222117 sel.
Thanks to Jenny Davidson, Dirk Enneking, Tony Leonforte, Bob Redden and assorted databases for helping to sort that one out.