- Stunning images of Earth from space. Direct agricultural (biodiversity) interest at 3, 6 and 15.
- A cheese that’s full of agrobiodiversity. In more ways than one.
- Agrobiodiversity useful in space. And from space.
- Biodiversity in Africa. Agriculture mentioned, and not just in a bad way. Nice maps too.
- Eggplants. Agrobiodiversity. Cooking. Sex. Video.
- Sad story of a farmer losing his cows. Not just cows, “the oldest pure breed on Earth.”
- Farmers bred colourful pigs for the sheer hell of it.
- CABI blog reviews 2008.
- Keeping oysters healthy is hard.
- Legendary breeder Khush says organic rice not a good idea.
- Variation Under Domestication. Darwin’s Origin blogged.
Nibbles: Wheat, Cotton, Dogs
Cooking the books
The news that the DNA in medieval parchments is to be fingerprinted has been making quite a splash. Parchments are made of animal skins, of course, and it seems that it is possible to recover DNA in decent shape — the latest example of archeogenetics. The idea is to produce “a taxonomy of manuscript manufacture,” which must be of tremendous excitement to medievalists. But John Hawks describes another possible application in his anthropological blog that’s more in line with our agrobiodiversity interests here:
…the results may be equally useful for understanding the processes of animal breeding in medieval Europe. Today’s domesticated breeds are a remnant of a much larger diversity of local breeds that once existed. People bred animals both locally by selection and across large regions by introducing favored animals from long distances. Sometimes they favored diversity — and considering the revival of interest in legacy breeds like Highland cattle.
Wish I’d thought of that…
Nibbles: Grazing, Blog
- Sheep grazing on natural grassland taste better and are better for the envioronment.
- Student goes around world looking for seeds. How’s it going, Adam?
Go, dormouse
I do hope the English dormouse population takes off. Because then the Brits could start eating the cute little things again.