- The taxonomy of cow farts. Can’t improve on that title.
- What the hell is Hawaiian Plantain, and why is it needed in Panama?
- Ever eat a sedge?
- Bet they could do with some pepper.
- Ancient Japanese rice found. Let the DNA extraction begin.
- Indian farmers can now claim royalties on traditional varieties. What could possibly go wrong?
- How about paying them to preserve “traditional and fast disappearing millets“?
- Video on CIFOR’s greatest successes. I think the greatest failures would be more instructive.
- Self-consciously cool (but don’t let put you off) podcast on the domestication of the dog.
- The evolution of human lactose persistence, however, is not all about calcium.
- Today’s theory about honeybee deaths is sure to be discussed at today’s honeybee health summit.
- Can participatory mapping save the commons? Probably not, but fun nevertheless.
- Fun? How about the successful defence of a thesis on “The social structure of cultivated plants: the influence of exchanges, representations and practices on sorghum diversity in Mount Kenya’s people”.
- Keep calm and eat kangkung. Don’t you love it when one meme eats another?
- Say you want an African Green Revolution Forum … Well, you know, go to Maputo.
Brainfood: Tanzanian maize, ITK, Genebank value, Congolese bananas, Amaranth domestication, Ethiopian coffees, Dacryodes diversity, Apple diversity, Breeding pulses, Commons, Beet genetic structure, Restoring landscapes, Indian agrobiodiversity
- Modern maize varieties going local in the semi-arid zone in Tanzania. OPVs from the 80s are creolizing still, and that’s a good thing.
- Traditional Knowledge Systems, International Law and National Challenges: Marginalization or Emancipation? Well, it looks like it’s the former, but should be the latter. ‘Twas ever thus.
- Valuing insurance services emerging from a gene bank: The case of the Greek Gene Bank. Benefits are greater than costs. Phew.
- Banana genotype composition along the Uganda-Democratic Republic of Congo border: a gene pool mix for plantain and highland bananas. You can still find new stuff. And get funding to look for it, clearly.
- Relationships between the Weedy Amaranthus hybridus (Amaranthaceae) and the Grain Amaranths. Multiple domestications? And why not.
- Genetic Diversity Analysis of Some Ethiopian Specialty Coffee (Coffea arabica L.) Germplasm Accessions Based on Morphological Traits. As ever, useful variation was found. We await its arrival in our morning cup.
- Genetic diversity of Dacryodes buettneri (Engl.) H.J. Lam (Burseraceae), a timber tree in Central Africa. There is some. It could be important, yada yada.
- Malus sieversii: A Diverse Central Asian Apple Species in the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System. The infra-specific taxa may not hold up.
- Exploiting Genomic Resources for Efficient Conservation and Use of Chickpea, Groundnut, and Pigeonpea Collections for Crop Improvement. It’s so close, these guys can taste it. When will we?
- Is genetic information a commons? Maybe it should be.
- Genetic structure and gene flow in Beta vulgaris subspecies maritima along the Atlantic coast of France. The latitudinal cline that wasn’t.
- Restoration of degraded agricultural terraces: Rebuilding landscape structure and process. Restoration is not enough, you need continuous management thereafter. Probably applies to the agricultural biodiversity too, when you think about it.
- Agro-biodiversity in rice–wheat-based agroecosystems of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India: implications for conservation and sustainable management. Resource-poor farmers are better at agrobiodiversity conservation than rich ones. ‘Twas ever thus.
Nibbles: British foods, NBPGR wheat, CIMMYT wheat, Innovation, Ghana cowpea, Nordic grog, Medicinal purposes, Heirloom chocolate, Grünewoche, Dog genomics, Berry go Round, Broad beans, Ag landscapes, Tea and CC
- Google Map of British protected food names. Where’s fish and chips? Or the cream tea. Japan next?
- Indian genebank in the record books for characterizing wheat.
- And with no help from CIMMYT!
- Getting those damn smallholders to innovate already.
- Ghana gets a new cowpea to innovate with. Well, almost.
- And there I was thinking smallholders had been innovating for thousands of years. Even in the frozen north. Winter may be coming, but we’ve got grog. Which you know is good for you.
- As is chocolate, so go ahead and submit your heirloom cacao beans for evaluation. But don’t be tempted to cheat. We’ll know if you are.
- Oh damn, it’s Green Week.
- The story behind the methods used in a recent paper on dog diversity. Wonkish.
- We seem to have slipped off the Berry Go Round treadmill, which means we missed some gorgeous photos of broad beans.
- And another belated treat: UNESCO’s round up of World Heritage agricultural landscapes.
- …one of which is not tea in China, but maybe it should be, before it’s too late.
Nibbles: Wild veg, Cleome, Barberries, Alley-cropped wheat, Bison, Seed potatoes, Veg database, IPR of PGRFA
- Wild veg are very much in the news today. Teresa Borelli and Danny Hunter are unlocking their potential.
- Meanwhile, Eileen Omosa actually has unlocked their potential. Here’s her take on Cleome gynandra (smoked out by Luigi’s photo of same).
- And then there are barberries, scourge of rust-susceptible wheat.
- Some trees, though, properly deployed, can be good for wheat. My head’s spinning with all that complexity.
- Saddest story you’ll read all day? Or most hopeful? A timeline of the status of the bison in North America.
- Seed degeneration to be studied. And about time too. Course, they don’t mean true seed. That never degenerates, not even in the
- World Vegetable Center’s spiffy genebank, whose database contains 438 species. As odd a way to advertise the database as any.
- And here’s a thought to strike terror into the hearts of genebank curators everywhere: plant genetic resources may not all be public goods after all, says noted expert Michael Halewood.
Nibbles: Banana bionformatics, Banana problems, Dietary diversity indicator, SoD meet, MSSRF & millets, Intercropping tree crops, Ecosystem management, UNEP atlas, Pacific ABS, Seed theft
- Data geeks tuck into bananas.
- Will it help the Filipino smallholder, though?
- Dietary diversity suggested as an indicator of welfare at national level. Wow.
- Seeds of Discovery discovers it has made progress.
- Celebrating a potato breeder. We should do more of that.
- Beer-fueled conservation. Not what you’re thinking.
- Milling minor millets means more money.
- CIRAD breaks down intercropping rubber. And nutmeg?
- Better forest governance by the numbers. How about savannas
- Arab region gets an environmental atlas. Also in Google Earth.
- The Pacific learns about the ITPGRFA. Not for the first time…
- I guess these guys didn’t know about MTAs.