Information

January 22, 2008

Making wine

How to make wine. With pic goodness. AA unavailable for comment.

January 22, 2008

Ark of Taste

Slow Food databases “forgotten flavours.” Thanks, Lubin.

January 21, 2008

From Ian Ramjohn at Further Thoughts comes news of a new blog carnival on things botanical. It is called Berry Go Round and it is being launched by Laurent at Seeds Aside. The deadline is the 25th of each month. Sounds like a great idea, especially if cultivated plants are going to be covered as well as the things you find in rain forests etc. So send your stuff in, and visit.

January 19, 2008

The Vanishing of the Bees

Colony Collapse Disorder gets a documentary. Maybe.

January 16, 2008June 22, 2015

PGR Newsletter published

The latest issue of PGR Newsletter, published by Bioversity International and FAO, is available online. It includes a tribute to Professor Jack Hawkes, a towering figure in the history of agricultural biodiversity, and much else of potential interest.

NOTE: The links on this post were updated on 23 June 2015 to reflect a new arrangement for the hosting of the PGR Newsletter.

1. What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
2. Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
3. Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
4. What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
5. Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
6. Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
7. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
8. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
9. Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
10. And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
11. And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
12. Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
13. You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
14. I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
15. Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
16. No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…
Published on April 4, 2025

Category: Information

Making wine

Ark of Taste

Botanical blogging

The Vanishing of the Bees

PGR Newsletter published