- The 2nd World Seed Conference is coming up soon.
- Orange bananas make it big in the Solomon Islands. Thanks, Lois.
- DIVA-GIS website gets a makeover. Watch out for the blog.
- Global protected areas map mashed up.
- Dorian Fuller blogs lentil and bean domestication.
- Bookforum.com does food.
- While people discuss the pros and cons of assisted migration, one group has actually gone out and done it.
Pssst! Wanna pollinate pumpkins?
I was cleaning out a mailbox the other day, and came across a message from Karl Haro von Mogel, who is quite well known around these parts. He was advising me that his new pollination video — on Cucurbits — had just been uploaded to YouTube. And I forgot to write about it. Apologies to Karl, but I’ll make it up in a minute.
The video is clearly aimed at the more industrial end of the spectrum. Bringing parent plants into a greenhouse was never an option for me. On the other hand, wandering through the pumpkin patch soon after dawn to gather ripe male flowers that had not quite opened was one of the great treats of saving my own seeds. And Karl deals with more than just controlled pollination. The first 3 1/2 minutes gives a good overview of cucurbit diversity, centres of origin and wild relatives. And near the end he reveals the secrets of the seedless watermelon. All in all, well worth 10 minutes of your life, even if you plan never to pollinate a pumpkin.
In his email Karl mentioned that he had entered the video for a competition at Chlorofilms. It was one of 17 2nd prize winners. So were some of his other films, including this one on pepper breeding.
Maybe if we could rustle up “at least $8000” in prize money we’d get some entries to our own competitions. Or maybe we should just enter the next Chlorofilms competition, if and when it happens.
Nibbles: Peaches, Education, Water, Food safety
- Shades of gray — local is good — in the organic vs conventional sterility. Yay!
- Lawyers wannabe farmers. They’ll need this font.
- Bartenders wannabe farmers too.
- Well 2.0 — mobile phones to control irrigation.
- Mango seeds source of biocides.
Nibbles: Web 2.0 edition
- Digital soil maps. Luscious. Via.
- Farmers encouraged to tweet. Yeah, right, they have time for that.
- Urban farming: the new dot com? Before the bubble, or after?
Agricultural biodiversity and universities
Our friends and colleagues at Bioversity International have just published a 4-page briefing on Learning Agrobiodiversity: The importance of agricultural biodiversity and the role of universities. 1 It gives an admirable summary of what agricultural biodiversity is, what it is good for, and what is happening to it. The main thrust, though, is to present the results of surveys of how agrobiodiversity features in university curricula.
Bottom line: not so well.
If you know of any courses that the authors may have missed, we’ll be happy to pass on any information. And if you’re moved to organize a course and are looking for guest lecturers, we can probably help there too.