Medicinal plants

Nibbles: Vavilov double, Huge avocado, African urban ag, Agarwood threat, Double coffee, Sequencing beer, Sloane ranges, Chinese bees, Gendered breeding, Access to seeds/meds, Genebank funding, Quinoa prices, Organic ganja

VIR on Atlas Obscura, with pic goodness courtesy of yours truly. And on the same site, something Vavilov would have approved of: a very diverse Tajik apple orchard.
A new avocado to conjure by.
Urban agriculture won’t cut the mustard.
Trees that named Fragrant Harbour disappearing.
The downside of coffee. But never fear, there’s a strategy coming!
The beernome!
Happy birthday Sir Hans Sloane, for many botanical reasons!
Chinese pollinators in trouble. Enough of the exclamation marks.
Do you have any examples of “plant or animal breeding that has successfully incorporated gender considerations into its strategies and end products”? Contact these people.
Can seeds learn from meds, policy-wise?
Bioversity DG lobbies for genebanks.
Get your fill of quinoa, courtesy of Jeremy.
Sustainable pot. ‘Cause that’s the California Way, man.

You know you want to try black sapote.
Podcast on how to save coffee. And it probably needs it.
Once we’ve saved the cultivated species, maybe we should save it in the wild as well?
If not, there are other species, other drugs, I guess. No, really.
Indigenous fire management in Australia.
Everything you need on lupins. You’re welcome.
Is anyone collecting endophytes? Or microalgae for that matter?
Marvellous interactive atlas of the botanical collecting of Richard Evans Schultes in the Amazon.
Wine yeasts are way inbred. Which can’t be altogether good.
Watermelons need flower diversity.
One does feel for climate-stupid varieties.

Coffee botany resources.
Uncovering the illegal agarwood trade.
Developing the potato bean. First step: find a new name.
Dog taxonomy explained.
Project Baseline sets a, ahem, baseline, for studying plant diversity under climate change.
Ok, random shout-out for my niece Francesca’s work on kudzu bug natural control. Because I can. And she’s fabulous.
Blooming chickpeas!
The inhabitants of Casas Grandes brewed maize beer in the 14th century. Well of course they did.
Peruvian quinoa landscapes have a name: aynokas.
Crop domestication 101.
Where (commercial) breeders go wrong.
Presumably none of above mistakes are made by EU plant breeding companies.
Stimulating plant defences for faster response to pest and disease attack.
Germany told to go for local meadow seeds.
Use of shea butter trees goes way back.

Climate change is going to hit us where we live. Or die.
How to make GBIF more relevant for agrobiodiversity: a 10-point plan.
Killer fungi on the loose? ‘Twas ever thus. But genomics will save us?
Planting trees is good for lions too.
There are still medieval oaks in England.
“…where sommelier-like ‘budtenders’ sell gourmet ganja in a designer showroom.”
Rewilding the wild horse.
More about the cassava variety Kasetsart 50, poster child for CGIAR impact.
It’s not just genetic resources that are contested. Yep, agronomy too.
“Scientific conclusions and business or policy decisions should not be based only on whether a p-value passes a specific threshold.”

The next step in the evolution of participatory plant breeding is evolutionary plant breeding.
1458 livestock breeds are in trouble.
A blast from corn’s past. In more ways than one, as this article from High Country News is kinda old.
The Chinese market in African wildlife is bad for both.
Let them eat plastic.
Maclura pomifera is apparently all the rage in Iowa.
There’s more to Italian wine than chianti.
“You can’t really get fucked up on kava.” I beg to differ.
Two independent pieces on the continuing evolution of humans to cope with their diet: starch, milk and meat.