Interesting to see this video explaining evolution using the domestication and modern breeding of the banana as an example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8&feature=player_embedded#at=353Keeping track of those pesky CRPs
We’ve been keeping an eye on the CGIAR change process, of course. Of course. Particularly as it relates to what they will do about agrobiodiversity, of course. Of course. But it really is not that easy to keep track of what’s happening with the megaprogrammes, or CGIAR Research Programmes (CRPs) as they are called now. The old CGIAR website is not much use. The blog on the change process they used to have doesn’t seem to be open to all any more. 1 Their knowledge sharing program doesn’t seem to focus much on the changes that are going on. And the page on the CRPs on the new Consortium website is of Saharan aridity. One is left to the information and communications shops of the individual Centres for the latest news on the development of the CRPs, and just recently ICRAF, IRRI, and IFPRI have indeed obliged. But each in their interestingly different ways, and still not a huge amount of evidence of system thinking, at least on the communications side. Anyway, interesting to see a whole (sub)theme in IFPRI’s policy CRP devoted to research on “policies and strategies that facilitate (or hinder) access to enhanced crops and animals, as well as the exchange of germplasm.” With a special reference to neglected and underutilized crops, no less. Alas with nary a mention of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, though. Presumably that will be dealt with elsewhere in the CRPs? No, wait…
Nibbles: Sake, Wine, Kew, Climate change, Canada, Banana processing
- To a hammer, everything is a nail; Decanter magazine bemoans loss of sake breweries in Japan.
- One door closes, another one opens; “price winning” Croatian wines.
- Why go to Kew when you can tour with Google streetview?
- Slideshow on genebanks and climate change adaptation in Ethiopia. Wish I could hear the words.
- Canadians! Your heritage crops and breeds need you.
- How best to dry banana slices in Ethiopia.
Nibbles: Intensification, Turnips, Colourful breeding, Development, CGIAR Research Programs, C4 ALV, IRRI,
- Ecological intensification: some new science to use.
- Tetraploid turnip tolerates salt.
- The Scientist Gardener does colourful pepper (mostly) breeding.
- “Envy holds back agricultural development.” Say wha?
- IFPRI sells what it is up to on Policies and Nutrition.
- Cleome gynandra is a C4 plant with wonderful adaptations; I bet the people eating it don’t know that.
- IRRI impresses UK diplomat, especially the genebank.
More messing about with Droppr
I continued my exploration of IFPRI’s wonderful Droppr software by looking at its future climate tool. You click on a spot on the Earth and it tells you how total precipitation and average temperature will change, for each month of the year. Again, I did it for the mother-in-law’s farm, and this is the result:
Looks pretty bad, at least for temperature. Although of course, for maize at least, which is the main food crop in that area, what you really want to know is peak, rather than average, temperatures. That’s according to a study by David Lobell and Marianne Bänziger we nibbled a few days back, and which recently got a big write up in The Economist:
Days above 30°C are particularly damaging. In otherwise normal conditions, every day the temperature is over this threshold diminishes yields by at least 1%. Moreover, days where the temperature exceeds 32°C do twice the harm of those at 31°C. And during a drought, things are worse still. Then, yields take a hit of 1.7% per day over 30°C.