Mainstream

June 29, 2013June 28, 2013

Landraces on display in Scottish botanic garden

We have sown ancient landrace varieties such as bere barley, which was probably grown in Scotland before the Vikings arrived, alongside modern crop varieties, to illustrate this variation. As the summer progresses the consequences resulting from different selections of these grasses will become clear.

That’s at the University of Dundee Botanic Garden. If you go, and take some photos, we’d be glad to share them here.

June 28, 2013July 1, 2013

African leafy greens in the mainstream

Really great to see the strides that traditional African leafy greens have been making in the past few years in Kenya. I remember twenty years ago, when I first went there and started working on these plants, decent seeds could only be had from a few specialized farmers in Western Province. Now both seeds and the veggies themselves seem to be all over. And people are willing to pay a hefty premium for them. Truly a success story.

June 28, 2013July 5, 2013

Nibbles: Tea nomenclature, Medicinal plants, Robert Fortune, Gender gap, Japanese women farmers, AnGR conservation, Herbarium databases, India & Africa

Tea diversity 101.
Tea is medicinal, isn’t it? Certainly some other plants introduced to the West by the same person are.
I could tell you all about the gender gap in tea cultivation in Kenya.
And I bet there’s one in Japan too.
Not to mention in livestock-keeping. But I don’t suppose that will affect (ILRI’s) plans for a ~~Kenyan~~ livestock genebank.
Crowdsourcing herbarium data. Maybe there’s some specimens of wild tea species in there…
India reaches out to Africa. ICRISAT involved. Debal Deb, probably not so much. Chai, anyone?

June 27, 2013June 27, 2013

Nibbles: Potato diversity sites, Potato market, Smallholders and markets, CIP genebank, African potato meet, Japanese fries & eels, Micronutrients, Pickling book

Setting up a network of high potato diversity sites for in situ conservation. It has a Facebook page, so “Like” it.
Some of that diversity will no doubt find its way to Lima’s markets.
If not, Leaping and Learning will tell you how. And why.
There’s a lot of diversity in genebanks too, of course. And thank goodness for that!
Potatoes are important in Africa too.
And Japan. But do they go with eels?
What are potatoes like for micronutrients? Probably better than you think. But could be better?
If not, you can always pickle them. Can’t you?

June 26, 2013June 28, 2013

Ancient American agrobiodiversity podcasts galore, and more

No sooner had I digested (as it were) Jeremy’s latest offering, that I ran across two other recent podcasts also on subjects related to ancient American agriculture. Archaeologist Dr David Lentz discusses the Pompeii of Central America in the latest Academic Minute. And environmental journalist Sam Eaton talks about the resurgence of amaranth in Mexico. Never rains but it pours.

Well, since it’s raining so hard, let me throw in a couple of related tidbits. If you’ve got a paper on amaranth or any other similarly downtrodden crop, you have until 15 July to put in an abstract for the 3rd International Conference on Neglected and Underutilized Species, to be held in Accra, Ghana on 25-27 September 2013. And if you’re Brazilian, and you’re interested in studying agrobiodiversity in Latin America, including NUS no doubt, you have until June 30 to apply for a studentship. And finally there is the IX Simposio Internacional de Recursos Genéticos para América Latina y el Caribe in El Salvador in November.

LATER: Talk about zeitgeist. Here’s another little something for the weekend for all you NUS aficionados: there’s a special issue of Sustainability in the works on “Underutilized Plant Species: Leveraging Food and Nutritional Security, and Income Generation.” Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2013.