Mainstream

May 18, 2021

Nibbles: Western grapes, Mapping pastoralists, Difficult species

Grafting the Grape Virtual Lecture Series: Missouri Vines and Wines: Then and Now. Wait, that’s today!
Mapping for Pastoralists, On-line Seminar. Phew, it’s next week.
APPS Special Issue Call for Papers: “Meeting the Challenge of Exceptional Plant Conservation: Technologies and Approaches.” Relax, you have until June. Wait…

May 14, 2021

Nibbles: Social science, Berry call, Oz bank, Prior art

5 suggestions for scientists on social: see & be seen, select & specialize, serve, socialize, strategize.
Open call to berry breeders.
Another genebank for Australia makes a splash.
How to avoid a repeat of the whole Enola bean story.

May 11, 2021May 10, 2021

Nibbles: Dates, Patagonian berries, Wild edibles, Barley breeding, African grains, Tea & CC, Grapes

Dates!
Berries!
Goosefoot!
Malting barley!
Ancient grains!
Tea!
American grapes!

May 5, 2021

Nibbles: Emissions, Anthromes, S Asian farming origins, Old seeds, Chestnut, Canadian heirlooms, ABS newsletter

Food contributes 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions.
How we got to the above.
And a focus on how farming started in South Asia in particular.
A long-term seed experiment carries on.
Another chapter in the story of the comeback of the American chestnut?
Want to help a heirloom make a comeback?
There’s a newsletter on the law and policy behind all this stuff.

April 30, 2021

Nibbles: Evidence, Agroecology, Iconography, Cryo

Educational materials for conservation.
Seminar on agroecology next week by Professor of Agroecology Steve Gliessman.
Why is there a citron in Van Eyck’s Ghent altarpiece?
APPS Special Issue Call for Papers: “Meeting the Challenge of Exceptional Plant Conservation: Technologies and Approaches.”

1. What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
2. Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
3. Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
4. What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
5. Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
6. Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
7. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
8. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
9. Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
10. And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
11. And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
12. Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
13. You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
14. I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
15. Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
16. No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…
Published on April 4, 2025