Category: Information

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Nibbles: Cancun, Maya in Haiti, Indian Food, Pavlovsk, Currywurst, Banana biofuel, Book, Radio, Beer, East African cattle breed, Climate change and altitude, Amazon, Lycopersicon, Pollinator plants, Phenology, Economics

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Nibbles: Kew, Diversity, Allanblackia and Acacia, Pulses, GIS, Poverty, Early morning flowering, Agrobiodiversity and climate change, Breeding, Genebanks, Perenniality, Blogs, AGRA, Potato diversity, Witchweed, Mexican potatoes, Salvia, Old Sicilian chestnut, Tropical maize

  • Guardian has whole piece on the importance on Kew’s collections without once mentioning Millennium Seed Bank. Anyway, the Paris herbarium is not so bad either, though they are no match for the Kew press machine.
  • Hybridization is good for plant diversity. Well, yeah. What am I missing here? Oh and here’s more about things that maintain variation, and more still. You see what I did there?
  • Allanblackia is the next big thing in agroforestry. Which probably means its name will soon be changed.
  • Conclave meets to discuss election of next Pope pulse productivity.
  • Videos from Africa GIS week.
  • Meeting to review 10 years of research on chronic poverty. Must have been deeply depressing.
  • Helping rice to keep its cool. A crop wild relatives story.
  • “The Ministry of Science and Technology should emphasize the need to undertake research programmes on unexplored and underutilized crops as these could constitute the genetic base for genes for improved nutritional quality of foods.” In India, that is.
  • “We need to mine that diversity to provide genetic material in an adapted background more readily to be used by plant breeders.” From CIMMYT. How many times have I heard that? Here’s my problem: who will do it?
  • That IRIN feature from a few days ago recycled with a new pic. Which is of a genebank not included in the list in the text. The person shown is my friend Dr Jean Hanson, recently retired head of the ILRI genebank.
  • DIY perennial cereals.
  • “Biodiversity scientists and agricultural scientists have tended to approach their interests in very different ways. I think there’s a lot we can learn from each other.” Wait, what?
  • Another best biodiversity blogs list. Ahem.
  • A “very clear action plan” for a ‘Green Revolution’ in Africa emerges from AGRA meeting. You will however look in vain for the details on the scidev.net piece.
  • The last Inka treasure. Yep, the potato.
  • Boffins find anti-Striga gene. No, not really, settle down.
  • Rachel Laudan is really rude about Mexican potatoes.
  • Cur moriatur homo cui salvia crescit in horto? Good question.
  • Finding the 100-Horse Chestnut.
  • Getting to grips with photoperiod sensitivity in maize.
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Plant Genetic Resources Newsletter: an update

We took advantage of a recent meeting to ask Theo van Hintum, one of the people behind efforts to breathe new life into Plant Genetic Resources Newsletter about the patient’s prognosis. He said that, encouraged by the support from the community, Robert Koebner, the other guy behind the initiative, and he had tried several donors, asking for $25,000 a year for three years. Answers ranged from “no” to no answer yet, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Theo and Robert are beginning to be a bit fed up. The demand is there; what is missing is a little financial support.

We discussed three possible solutions, all of which could involve you, our readers.

Maybe $25,000 a year for three years is too little. Instead of going to the usual suspects, who put PGRN in intensive care in the first place, what if a proposal went to an individual or foundation interested in agriculture, capacity building, education and empowerment? Might they entertain a grant of $100,000 a year for three years, which would enable PGRN to hire a dedicated administrator? Of course, none of us know of such a foundation or individual. Do you?

Someone suggested Kickstarter as a source of investors. That remains a possibility; does anyone have any experience with it? Alternatively, what about kickstarting PGRN ourselves. Theo says they need $25000 a year for three years. That’s only $1000 each for 75 of us who might be able to afford it, and less if more. I will if you will.

In the end PGRN must be self-supporting and not reliant on grants and whims. Would something like Google Adwords offer a reasonable income stream? It could be worth a try, in conjunction with either of the two pump-priming investments outlined above. If all the back-issues could be made available on one effective website, I reckon there’s a good chance that there would be enough traffic … but what do I know?

Theo said that he and Robert want to go ahead only if they can secure three years of funding, “to see whether it can be a success, and then maybe the proper organizations to handle the newsletter will want it back”.

“How do you define success?”

“Visitors, submissions, feedback; the donors will judge.”

I disagree. Donors have been known to reverse their judgments. The best measure of success will be if PGRN is sustainably and independently supported. Can we do that?