Mainstream

February 17, 2016February 18, 2016

Looking for a good potato picture

Well, Kevin Abosch takes a pretty decent picture of a potato. I’m not sure it’s worth the million dollar price tag, but it’s definitely not bad, as far as I’m concerned. Not everybody agrees, though, and this has spurred an interesting discussion at The Online Photographer, which Jeremy alerted me to.

Mike Johnston, who runs that site, threw out a challenge:

…is a good potato picture a thing that just doesn’t exist?

Commenters point to a number of plausible candidates, including the series by Andrzej Maciejewski, which I like a lot but I agree with Jeremy is spoiled by the lack of variety names.

Any more suggestions?

February 16, 2016February 15, 2016

American vs European taste

Julia Belluz has a long article over at Vox on Why fruits and vegetables taste better in Europe. Compared to the US, that is. Here’s the bottom line. Or lines:

American farmers put an emphasis on yield and durability, not flavour
American shoppers favour access over seasonality
The US government regulates for safety — but not quality
Finding flavourful food is a matter of priorities

I’m really not sure whether like is being compared with like here, and, if it is, whether one can generalize to this extent anyway about American or European farmers, shoppers and governments. Ms Belluz seems to agree, in a tweet, that she might be winging it a bit:

I know, I know. No systematic reviews on this one. More a matter of perception and lowly anecdote

But read the whole thing for yourself, and join in on the discussion on Twitter.

Hey, @juliaoftoronto! Let's talk. Is there evidence that Euro produce actually does taste better? https://t.co/Ds0ZVcOAv3

— Tamar Haspel (@TamarHaspel) February 12, 2016

February 15, 2016February 15, 2016

Brainfood: Species shifts, Rewilding caution, Managing grassland, Natural control, Expansion, Rutin, Citrullus core, Open source seeds, Nagoya consequences, Tree diversity

Altitudinal shifts of the native and introduced flora of California in the context of 20th-century warming. Introduced species are better at spreading upward than the native flora.
Rewilding is the new Pandora’s box in conservation. Step away from the shiny new box.
Threatened herbivorous insects maintained by long-term traditional management practices in semi-natural grasslands. Because they can’t compete with generalists better adapted to the new-fangled conditions.
Agricultural landscape simplification reduces natural pest control: A quantitative synthesis. Aphid control 46% lower in simple landscapes with lots of cultivated land, compared to more diverse landscapes.
Addressing future trade-offs between biodiversity and cropland expansion to improve food security. Expansion could really help with food security, also in importing countries, but is likely to occur in biodiversity hotspots, which means the devil will be in the spatial detail.
Quantitative analysis of rutin content using silkworm genetic resources. Wait, silkworm powder?
Genetic Diversity, Population Structure, and Formation of a Core Collection of 1197 Citrullus Accessions. Microsatellites detect differences between American and E. Asian ecotypes and select diverse subset of 130 accessions from Chinese collection.
Open Source Foodways: Agricultural Commons and Participatory Art. Seeds as art.
Implications of the Nagoya Protocol for Genome Resource Banks Composed of Biomaterials from Rare and Endangered Species. There are many, some of them unforeseen.
Functional Resilience against Climate-Driven Extinctions – Comparing the Functional Diversity of European and North American Tree Floras. Loss of species diversity may be decoupled from loss of functional diversity.

February 14, 2016February 15, 2016

Nibbles: Cover crops, Viet coconut, Water maps, Mao’s mango, Tudor bread, Belgian gardening, IRRI fingerprints, Stay green barley, Miniature donkey

Uncovering cover crops, the NY Times way.
Uncovering coconut cultivation in Vietnam, the Roland Bourdeix way.
Where to expect water shortages, and irrigation. Crying for a mashup.
When a mango is not just a mango.
Bread, and much else, according to the Tudors.
A Belgian plantsman is revolutionizing gardening. No, really.
How genomics will revolutionize rice breeding. No, really.
How to get deeper barley roots for drought tolerance? Look to sorghum.
And today’s miniature livestock is…a donkey.

February 13, 2016February 12, 2016

Promoting local varieties through fancy cooking

So, did everyone catch the common strand in a lot of Friday’s Nibbles? I’ll give you a couple more minutes to figure it out, so go and have another look…

Yep, it’s the use of local crops and varieties in gourmet cuisine. And by implication the role of high-end chefs and restaurants ¹ in conserving them, for example maize landraces in Oaxaca, everything from potatoes to huacatay in Peru, heirloom rice in the Philippines, and, for added piquancy, wild pepper in Madagascar.

Interesting that a number of CGIAR centres are involved in this kind of work. Although CIP is not mentioned by name in the Peru article, they do have form. And the International Year of Pulses presents an opportunity that some at least are grabbing with both hands. Here’s hoping it’s all part of an ingenious system-wide strategy which will do something about pearl millet next. No, wait…