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Nibbles: African veggies, Commodities, Grasslands, Spices, TZ coconuts, Jordan genebank, Mosquito domestication, Jamon, GRIN-Global, Cultivariable

All-Africa Summit on Diversifying Food Systems with African Traditional Vegetables to Increase Health, Nutrition and Wealth. New dates! 25-28 January 2021.
“How do you like Cocoa and Coffee? Saving crops, protecting culture, sustaining livelihoods.” Online event, 8 September. Register here.
How the US prairies got wheat, a soil classification, tree shelter belts and weeds from the Russian steppes, thanks to Mennonite farmers and emigre Jewish scientists. Entertaining podcast on what sounds like a fascinating book. Oh and there’s a video too. Nice Vavilov anecdote.
History of Spices 101.
Quick summary of coconut research and development in Tanzania.
A genebank gets off the ground in Jordan.
How the mosquito Aedes aegypti got domesticated. Yeah, domesticated.
Texas and Georgia move into jamón ibérico: acorns off the menu, “pecans, peanuts and sunflower” on. Hilarity ensues.
The USDA National Plant Germplasm System gets a new database. Go crazy.
Meanwhile, Cultivariable publishes his latest evaluation data on the USDA potato germplasm (see “Evaluation Year”). Will it find its way into the above-mentioned database?

The results of the 2nd International Quinoa Research Symposium are up on YouTube.
I was today years old when I learned there’s a quinoa in Taiwan.
REALLY old English Greening apple tree dies. Sad: “When you reach your new home in the wilderness, should you ever think of me, plant these seeds.” Not all gloom, though, so do read the whole thing.
Coming conference on the medieval agricultural revolution.
Results of a dialogue on the registration of farmer varieties in SADC. Long way to go, alas.
Talk about adding value to agricultural products! But were weird local barley landraces harmed in the making of this whisky?
High value agricultural products, among other things, were used as gifts by 18th century merchants in Yemen. Not whisky, though, right? Well, actually…

There’s a sort of mycological culinary hotspot in Yunnan… Yeah, I thought that too.
Signs found of old banana cultivation in Australia. Well, kinda. As in not as old as in PNG, and not mainland Australia.
Really, really old horse butchery site in southern England excavated. When the Brits ate horses. Well, kinda.
New wheat is pretty much like old wheat, gluten-wise at least.
Breeding better apple rootstocks at USDA. A hitherto somewhat neglected aspect of apple genetic conservation and improvement.
Speaking of USDA, here’s another job.

Wild bees important even if there are plenty of honeybees.
The rice war hots up between Korea and Japan.
Peanut coffee. Peak 2020. Hopefully.
Op-ed on international agricultural research and indigenous knowledge systems takes us 25 years back in time to a simpler world.
New varieties are behind sugarcane expansion in the US. You want to delve a little deeper into the history of sugarcane down South? Ok, but it ain’t pretty. Still, some people want to redeem the crop.
Jeremy’s latest newsletter. Lots of good stuff on there. I’ll be saying a little more about it in a post.

Important job opening at USDA running the Ames Plant Introduction Station. 50,000 accessions, people.
Online database on the effectiveness of protected areas.
100-year seed experiment kicks off.
Towards more sustainable sugarcane in India. Spoiler alert: juice, not molasses.
The Neolithic temples of Malta were used to worship food.
The “fish pepper” of Black Chesapeake homegardens lost, and found..
News clip on the USDA central genebank at Ft Collins.
Invest 50 mins in learning about eucalypts.