Information

July 8, 2009July 8, 2009

Obligatory photos of agricultural biodiversity in Thai floating market go online to stifled yawns

I’m very ignorant about SE Asia, so I assumed that the famous (or infamous) “floating market of Bangkok” would be in Bangkok, rather than over 100km away. I also didn’t really expect it to be quite the tourist trap it is. Oh well. But they do sell a remarkable variety of fruits, vegetables and other assorted agrobiodiversity there. Go to my Flickr page and leave as many identifications as you can.

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July 8, 2009July 8, 2009

Nibbles: Kerr reports, Monsanto shares, Thailand patents

Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture mourns loss of agricultural biodiversity, issues report.
Monsanto “shares with farmers the science behind the technology.” Nice of them.
Thailand patents (transgenic) jasmine rice to “keep foreigners out of our paddy fields.” So much to say about this, so little time.

July 7, 2009January 10, 2011

The debunking of the genetic erosion meta-narrative continues

Regular readers will be familiar with our skepticism here at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog about the genetic erosion meta-narrative. Not with the fact that genetic erosion has in fact occurred, and is continuing to occur, of course. Just with the notion that it has occurred everywhere, for every crop, to the overall tune of “75% over the past century.” There’s now news of a further nail in the coffin of that hoary myth.

Continue reading “The debunking of the genetic erosion meta-narrative continues”

July 7, 2009July 7, 2009

Nibbles: Traditional knowledge, Opium poppy, Fish, Bees, Earthworms, Wild horses, Camel, Fearl rabbits, Guinea savannah, Kava

“In the face of climate change, keeping diverse, resilient ecosystems is one of the strongest tools for adaptation.”
Getting high in Eden.
Chinese ate freshwater fish 40,000 years ago.
British MPs finish cleaning their moats, decide to save the honeybee.
Worm power!
LEISA 25:2 is out.
Przewalski’s horse gets first ever reverse vasectomy.
Early farmers used camel-drawn carts.
Using Google Earth to map bunnies in Australia. And then kill them.
Farming the savannah. What could go wrong?
Stressed out? Try kava. With audio goodness.

July 3, 2009July 4, 2009

Attack of the Giant Parsley

David Brenner, a curator at the USDA genebank at Ames, Iowa, has just grown what may be the world’s tallest parsley plant.

Brenner says the seeds for the record-breaking parsley plant were first collected from Hungary in 1983. Even though it resembles a large bushy weed, he says it’s a perfect example of parsley. “It also had big tubers,” Brenner says. “The roots are almost four inches across and in Europe, the roots of parsley are another food crop, almost like a potato, so it has a double-barreled purpose.”

The Guinness people have been summoned. The existing record is six feet and this plant is almost eight.

GRIN knows about six Petroselinum accessions collected in Hungary in 1983, from five different villages, and donated in 1987. However, they’re listed as “inactive.” Not for long, I guess. But with the news making it to the media and Guinness on the way, I hope Dr Brenner manages to regenerate a lot of seed. To find out which one of the six the giant is, we’ll have to wait for the characterization data to go online. Look for that “plant height” descriptor…