- New Gene Conservation is out. Put out more flags.
- Biofuel from coffee grounds? Right. Hope the stuff was shade-grown, anyway.
- Is a lupin or date palm seed the oldest ever found? Let the controversy rage.
- Bees scare caterpillars as well as pollinating plants. Thankfully, Europe is on the job, colony-collapse-wise.
- Trouble for Scottish farmed salmon. And the wild ones may have their problems too. But aquaculture in general is booming, they say.
- Google Earth discovers forest. Not agrobiodiversity, but fun nonetheless.
- “It doesn’t just take in seeds – it sends them out.”
- Maize pest will love climate change. Well, some of them anyway.
- The latest review of earthworms discussed.
- Jellyfish and chips?
- Eating local pretty much unavoidable in Cuba. Yes, everyone wants to be a locavore these days.
- Japanese amateur botanists get into genebanking.
- “108 dishes based on jackfruit and seed varieties that are facing extinction were also exhibited at the festival.” 108?
- Queensland markets its tropical produce via a new website. No reason why others shouldn’t do the same, is there?
- “People shouldn’t underestimate how important a goat can be for a family in Africa.” Having had to assist in slaughtering one over Christmas, I certainly don’t.
- A rapid run-through the history of chocolate.
- Long-fallow agriculture in Mali leads to more, more diverse and taller trees.
- Global accessibility map published. Also one of fires, and intact forests. Let a thousand agrobiodiversity mash-ups bloom. Thanks, Andy.
- Nepal has lots of medicinal plants. Funny they don’t seem to feature in the Western Terai Landscape Complex Project.
The hype goes on
“More food at lower cost.”
Now there’s a headline packed with potential. Alas, that’s all it has at the moment, potential. Not to denigrate the science of Angharad R. Jones — known to his pals as Harry — and colleagues at the University of Bristol. ((The full paper is in Nature Cell Biology.)) They’ve done some nifty research into what makes plant root hairs grow. It’s a complex study involving a computer model of where the plant hormone ought to be, and the bottom line seems to be that it isn’t where the researchers thought it would be.
Great. A deeper understanding of the development of root hairs is important. Root hairs, after all, are the basis of the plant’s uptake of minerals and water. But the press release goes well beyond that:
This new understanding will be crucial in helping farmers to produce food sustainably and to reduce fertiliser waste, which can cause severe damage to ecosystems.
I’ve written the odd press release myself, and I know how hard it can be to interest reporters in the small individual bricks that make up the building that is scientific understanding. But this kind of reporting is, I fear, going to lead inevitably to overinflated expectations and crushing disappointment.
If anyone notices.
Ex situ conservation of endangered plants of the US
An interesting post on the Denver Botanic Garden’s blog led me to the Center for Plant Conservation‘s ((Hosted by the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri.)) database of the National Collection of Endangered Plants of the US, which I’m ashamed to say I knew nothing about. It is interesting to us here because it includes crop wild relatives like Helianthus species. There’s also lots of information on how to fight invasives, which has been the subject of some discussion here in the past few days.
Carlos Ochoa
Carlos Ochoa — legendary potato breeder, explorer and scholar — has passed away at an age of 79 in Lima, Peru.
Born in Cusco, Peru, Ochoa received degrees from the Universidad San Simon, Cochabamba, Bolivia and from the University of Minnesota, USA. For a long time Ochoa worked as a potato breeder. He combined Peruvian with European and American potatoes to produce new cultivars that are grown throughout Peru.
Ochoa was professor emeritus of the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Peru. In 1971, he joined the International Potato Center, where he worked on the systematics of Andean cultivated and wild potatoes. His long list of publications on this topic include hefty monographs on the potatoes of Bolivia and on the wild potatoes of Peru.
His last major published work (2006) is a book on the ethnobotany of Peru, co-authored with Donald Ugent.
Ochoa was a wild potato explorer par excellence. One third of the nearly 200 wild potato species were first described by him.
Carlos Ochoa received many international accolades, including Distinguished Economic Botanist, the William Brown award for Plant Genetic Resources, and, together with long time collaborator Alberto Salas, the Order of Merit of the Diplomatic Service of Peru.
Here is Ochoa’s own story about some of his early work, including his search for Chilean potatoes described by Darwin and his thoughts on potato varieties: “[they] are like children: you name them, and in turn, they give you a great deal of satisfaction”.
¡Muchas gracias, professor!
Underutilized plants policies unpacked
Agrobiodiversity policy wonks will be delighted that the recently-morphed Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species (GFU), in cooperation with the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative (GRPI), has just come out with the snappily titled “An overview of the international regulatory frameworks that influence the conservation and use of underutilized plant species.” You can download it from the Bioversity International publications pages, along with a separate publication, “The role of policy in the conservation and extended use of underutilized plant species: a cross-national policy analysis.” Other, country-specific GFU policy studies are also available.