Medicinal plants

Nibbles: Superweeds, Old spices, Companies and nutrition, Bananas and cacao, Coffee pix, Potato restaurant, Millet processing, Aussie social herbarium, Rockefeller Story, Apple nutrition, And a bottle of rum…

Those who like that sort of thing will no doubt enjoy this discussion at Biofortified of that recent paper about a herbicide resistance transgene possibly giving a fitness advantage to weeds. And more.
As for me, I’d rather read about Neolithic spices. Or beer.
Some food companies more committed to nutrition than others shock. But good to have the data.
Bananas to the rescue in cacao plantations. If I had the willpower I’d try to mash it up with the previous thing. Anyway, coffee next?
Eating more spuds in the Village. Eating more millets in the village.
Australian National Herbarium gets a Facebook page.
The history of the Rockefeller Foundation’s agriculture work. That would include the Green Revolution.
Really confused Telegraph piece on heirloom and/or organic apples.
I guess I missed National Rum Day. But I’m nevertheless glad that it exists.

Tea diversity 101.
Tea is medicinal, isn’t it? Certainly some other plants introduced to the West by the same person are.
I could tell you all about the gender gap in tea cultivation in Kenya.
And I bet there’s one in Japan too.
Not to mention in livestock-keeping. But I don’t suppose that will affect (ILRI’s) plans for a ~~Kenyan~~ livestock genebank.
Crowdsourcing herbarium data. Maybe there’s some specimens of wild tea species in there…
India reaches out to Africa. ICRISAT involved. Debal Deb, probably not so much. Chai, anyone?

A toolkit to help indigenous communities do conservation. Should they need one.
On the other hand… Half of Japan’s endangered species hotspots are found in satoyama, which are under pressure. Compare and contrast with rice farming in Thailand.
Learn all about some medicinal plants of the Amazon, minus their scientific names. Not including runa tea. Lots of other opportunities out there, though.
Maybe even including oysters.
Jeremy no doubt to feast on the mollusc after spilling the beans on the EU seed regulations at the Seed Savers jamboree.
Wonder what Calestous Juma thinks of those regulations.
But I bet he (and his father, who introduced the crop to his region of Kenya) would like this cassava website to rule them all.
The Volcani Institute‘s gifts to the world…
…probably include new strawberries, but not this one.
Scientists straining, failing to find plant to meaningfully compare to the giant panda.
Bioversity does up its iButtons.
And gets a namecheck in a paean to the FAO Commission on GRFA on its 30th birthday. All this FAO stuff is because its Conference is on this week. I don’t suppose any of it will be more important than Amartya Sen’s speech.

Cultivate medicinal trees to save them. Oh, and provide medicines.
Or you could harvest them sustainably from sacred forests?
Reef fished out? Aquaculture to the rescue. Sounds a bit like the aquatic equivalent of the above, no? But do they have sea cucumbers and their poop in those inland ponds?
Growing diverse crops good for bees, good for crops. Buckwheat diverse enough for ya?

After artichokes and asparagus, bamboo, obviously.
And after bamboo? Cassava, by any of its many names.
Botanical confusion: “Good tomatoes are a lot harder to get than good pot.” Not where I come from.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is concerned about US agriculture.
Per Pinstrup-Andersen is concerned about food price volatility, not high food prices.
And Jeremy is concerned that he may not be eating enough potatoes.
Luigi, for his part, is concerned about the two thirds of common plants that CIAT et al. say could lose 50% of their range by 2080.