Mainstream

October 4, 2012

Know your apples

You know that horrible feeling when you realize you’ve used the wrong apple variety? Well, you need never have it again, not with this handy new flowchart from Slate.

Now, if they could only do something similar for another important multi-purpose crop…

October 2, 2012

Nibbles: Cacao breeding, Specialy crops, Taihu pigs

Breeding cacao in Ecuador.
Supporting specialty crops in the US.
Tasty Chinese piglets.

September 26, 2012May 7, 2013

Nibbles: Darwin herbarium, Saving seeds, Hunger Season, Grafting, Farmers’ rights, Vitamin A scandal, Plant hunting

Did you know Darwin collected crop wild relative specimens on the Beagle?
Saving the Running Conch. And its stories.
Melinda Gates plugs “Hunger Season.” Including to AGRA, presumably.
I want a fruit salad tree too.
If you know how to implement Farmers’ Rights, the ITPGRFA would like to hear from you.
Don’t keep taking the (vitamin A) pills.
Hunters, pirates. You pays your money…

September 25, 2012September 25, 2012

Nibbles: Cryo primer, Ag development paradigms smackdown, Edible book, Roots & tubers conference, Deep taxonomy, WWF ag investment report, Forecasting rape disease, Amaranth, Competition

Science 2.0 Conservation 101 #fail.
It’s the roads, stupid. Well, not only. Cowen cowed.
Big book on the edible plants of Central America online.
Big root and tuber meet gets off the ground in Nigeria with pean for cassava.
How to link taxonomic names to everything
Responsible investment in agriculture. Mitt Romney alerted.
Video on diseases of oilseed rape, Rothamsted shares forecast (and it’s not good). So, is there any diversity in host response?
Amaranth, big time.
Correcting the capitalist tools on their misunderstanding of evolution. The tragedy is, they don’t seem to know they don’t know.

September 24, 2012September 24, 2012

Nibble: Colombian cassava, ITPGRFA in Costa Rica, Inca foods, Chaffey, Plantation, Artificial meadows, Squash, Wheat genome, Papyrus islands

Caribbean coast of Colombia high in cassava genetic diversity. Shakira alerted.
Costa Rica getting to grips with ITPGRFA. Not many people hurt.
Fox News Latino has a dietician tell us about Inca foods. In other news, Fox News has a Latino bit.
Plant Cuttings!
Did you celebrate the International Day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations? And does what’s happening with açaí qualify as plantations?
The London Olympics backlash begins. If you don’t agree with all that, here’s how to make your own meadow. Or restore one. Any crop wild relatives in all meadow-making?
Nice pic of squash diversity.
Very geeky presentation on how sequencing the wheat genome is going to solve all our problems. If you can follow it, you’re already convinced.
Floating plastic islands full of papyrus plants will save Lake Naivasha. I don’t know, but I’d sure like to see it.