Posted on August 24, 2010August 24, 2010Trouble for livestock Really, who’d be a livestock keeper these days? In Mongolia, Russia, or Pakistan. LATE: Ok, maybe in Canada?
Posted on August 23, 2010August 23, 2010Nibbles: Oca etc, Diseases, Pigs, Dzud, Sex, Rice There’s a Facebook group for that: unusual root crops, sponsored by the inimitable Rhizowen. ILRI says herders are important to identify disease outbreaks in livestock. Makes sense to me. ILRI also says local breeds should be included in Indian pig-breeding programmes. Again, no argument. More on livestock: what Mongolia’s harsh winter has wrought. BTW, there’s also a discussion at DAD-Net of the effect of Pakistan’s floods on livestock. Aspen trees need occasional sex. Don’t we all. Climate change not good for rice. I knew that, I think.
Posted on August 14, 2010August 14, 2010Nibbles: Agretti, Pavlovsk, Nutrition, Turkeys The Ethicurean digs into agretti (Salsola soda). Pavlovsk in the St Petersburg Times … … and in the Sydney Morning Herald. Conference in November: Nutrition Security in the Developing World ABD?. CIAT’s library showcases nutrition. More on turkey domestication.
Posted on August 10, 2010August 10, 2010Nibbles: Bent, Rice, Cheez, Pavlovsk, Millennium Seed Bank, Livestock, EUCARPIA Fine memoir of Sir Bent Skovmand. Thanks Dag. Rice yields falling — and not just in experimental stations. The paper. In all the eulogies to the inventor of the Cheez Doodle, a note of truth. You could buy the Pavlovsk genebank site for just USD3.3 million, it says here. Is that even doable? Meanwhile, over in England, Researchers Rush to Fill Noah’s Ark Seed Bank While Politicians Bicker. Meanwhile, in Australia, worries about declines in livestock diversity. EUCARPIA’s meetings calendar. Handy.
Posted on July 29, 2010July 29, 2010Nibbles: Vancouver Island, Organic breeding, Evolution, Roots, Coffee, ABS, Donkey domestication, Domestication, Yam Nancy Turner, great food anthropologist, deconstructs dinner on air. Breeding for resilience: a strategy for organic and low-input farming systems? Eucarpia conference in Paris in December. Love the ? Ford Denison on evolution in reverse: crops that become weeds. Nature on evolution in forward: crop breeders look at roots. “Shade-coffee farms support native bees that maintain genetic diversity in tropical forests.” Good to know. Want to know about Access & Benefit Sharing negotiations? We thought so. Ancient people moved their asses. Selection during domestication differs from selection during diversification. For the ass too? Expect to see Dioscorea hispida appear in spam emails very soon. And today’s answer to malnutrition is a blue-grin alga from Lake Chad. Kidding apart, it’s an interesting story.