- Nature “celebrates” 30 years of GMOs.
- African pastoralists know how not to destroy their livelihoods shock.
- African urban dwellers keep livestock shock.
- Vegetables can be perennial too. Oh yes indeedy. Not bitter gourd though, alas. Nor cucumber. And in other news, there’s a Bitter Melon Council. And also a campaign to promote zucchini in Iowa.
- Climate change reaches farmers in the Pacific NW. Can their Sri Lankan colleagues be far behind?
- Always good to have a beer story. Well, maybe not.
- Speaking of fermentation, this WSJ piece looks interesting, from the two sentences of it I can read. No, wait. Oh crap, try this.
- A hummus dip goes really nicely with beer. Is this the quinoa story again?
- A yam conference for the ages. Will they discuss the new trait ontology?
- Botanic gardens reach out. Genebanks next? Maybe not.
- You mean like the European ones, perhaps?
- That US CWR paper from the horse’s mouth. And a similar thing from Benin. But where does all that data come from?
- Baobab notes to go with all those factsheets.
- The Saharan olive needs a factsheet too. IRD obliges.
- Cool set of agriculture photos.
- A couple of different views of Indian food. Thanks to Cara de Silva and Diana Buja.
Nibbles: African food, Cattle grazing, Young farmers, Seed policy, Traditional medicine, Litchis, Land use, Perennial sorghum
- Today’s Nibbles is a Kenya edition. Just because.
- But we’ll start with an African foodie revolution that is passing that country by.
- Cattle need diverse foods too, so don’t neglect those forbs, Kenyans.
- A young Kenyan turns to vegetable growing. Not, alas, of the traditional kind. Yet.
- Well, he better get a move on, because it says here people are after his seeds.
- Seeds are what the traditional medicine industry could do with.
- I guess there’s always litchis.
- Wonder what they’ll do to land use patterns.
- But will there ever be perennial sorghum?
Nibbles: FAO Commission, Alpine plants conference, Young breeders, Indian sorghum, Pastoralists in the media, Neglected genomics, More quinoa, Cape Gooseberry in Europe, Database hell, Tomayto tomahto, Maple syrup, Double cropping, Cloning trees, Belated Earth Day, UK Plant Science Week
- Summary of that 14th Session of the CGRFA we were all following last week.
- Conferences on “Changes in alpine and arctic flora under climate change” we’ll all be following in September. If you’re from Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia, the organizers need you in particular. But hurry, before it’s too late!
- In other news, young scientists are into beer.
- India’s Directorate of Sorghum Research gets a genebank. Relationship with NBPGR unclear.
- Media portrayals of pastoralists in Kenya, China and India: The Report. The Brief. The Press Release. ILRI reaction?
- Neglected crops get the genomic treatment. And why that might be a good thing.
- CIAT wades in on quinoa.
- Call for information on Physalis peruviana cultivation in Europe.
- Biodiversity databases have errors! Shock! Horror! Probe!
- The nutritional difference between organic and conventional tomatoes deconstructed.
- Your maple sugaring questions answered. Nice idea.
- Double crop for development. I guess that’s the sustainable intensification everyone is talking so much about.
- If in doubt, clone it!
- Wait, wait, wait, we missed Earth Day?
- And also a bunch of UK plant science conferences. (I had of course linked to the storifications here originally, but they’ve gone now of course.)
Brainfood: Viruses, Allium genomic size, Acacia adaptation, Local carp, Chinese onions, Bull genetic info, Ecosystem services, Sahelian ag
- New threats to endangered Cook’s scurvy grass (Lepidium oleraceum; Brassicaceae): introduced crop viruses and the extent of their spread. Introduced crop virus threatens endemic.
- Role of adaptive and non-adaptive mechanisms forming complex patterns of genome size variation in six cytotypes of polyploid Allium oleraceum (Amaryllidaceae) on a continental scale. It’s not the environment.
- Evolution and ecology meet molecular genetics: adaptive phenotypic plasticity in two isolated Negev desert populations of Acacia raddiana at either end of a rainfall gradient. It’s the environment.
- Using biodiversity to valorise local food products: the case of fish ponds in a cultural landscape, their biodiversity, and carp production. It could work, if only people liked to eat carp and knew what biodiversity was.
- Phenotype and genetic diversity in potato onion cultivars from three provinces of northeast China. In other news, there’s something called a potato onion. Otherwise, this is actually a deeply boring paper.
- The value of genetic information to livestock buyers: a combined revealed, stated preference approach. Low to none, for now.
- Ecosystem Services. Latest issue includes a bunch of interesting reviews, and an editorial summarizing each in like a paragraph. Great service, great value. See what I did there?
- Scientific documentation of crop land changes in the Sahel: A half empty box of knowledge to support policy? There is no data, not really.
Nibbles: Carnivory, Insectivory, Pearl farming, Development grants, CWR mapping, Cassava genes, Permaculture in Malawi, Sustainability book, Sustainability conference, Commission, Morality & conservation, Beer from genebank
- Eat steak!
- No, eat cicadas!
- Farm pearls!
- Get a grant!
- CIAT got one, to map crop wild relatives!
- Not sure if any of these drought tolerance genes in cassava are from wild relatives, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
- I would likewise not be surprised if both cicadas and cassava featured in Malawian permaculture.
- Punjab’s 1st investigative e-paper doesn’t allow visitors to highlight and copy text, which means that the potentially interesting book about agricultural sustainability it mentions will go ungoogled.
- Which is a pity because I was really hoping for a nice segue into this conference on, ahem, agricultural sustainability, to take place in a few months in China.
- Which I could then have followed with a plug for the FAO Commission on GRFA, which many of us will be attending next week here in Rome.
- No, wait: Agricultural Sustainability: Progress and Prospects in Crop Research.
- But of course the best argument for sustainability is the moral one, right?
- That. Or beer.