- I need a drink.
- Or maybe some Viking ganja.
- I know I don’t need a VegiBee. But maybe you do.
- I guess we all need to write to the EU about the new seed law.
- Nobody needs another discussion of whether cloning is good or bad.
Nibbles: Fertilizer taxes, Sustainable brewing, Naked oats, New potatoes, White veggies, EU seed law, CGIAR policy, Grassland connectivity, Llama meat, Seed eating, Agroecology
- Intriguing: how about a sliding scale for fertilizer taxes?
- Dubious: sustainable brewing in Bogota.
- Surprising: naked oat seeds in Canada.
- Challenging: new coloured potato varieties are nutritious and pest-resistant.
- Illuminating: white veggies are nutritious too.
- Important: EU seed vote coming up.
- Belated: CGIAR goes open access.
- Intoxicating: Japanese drink fermented hydrangea leaves.
- Obvious: Cars move grassland seeds.
- Freaky: interspecific grass hybrid for flood prevention.
- Tasty: Fine carnivorous dining in Bolivia.
- Metaphysical: granivory is murder.
- Political: UK government supports agroecology.
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?
The history of national flower collections in the UK
A Facebook post by Plant Heritage earlier today pointed me to a news item on their website to the effect that collections of Monarda and Nepeta have been added to its nation-wide programme of National Plant Collections.
The Collections based near Okehampton, Devon, have been put together by Fi Reddaway in her two acre garden on the edge of Dartmoor. She has used the development of the Collections to help her rehabilitate from ME diagnosed in 2004.
Good news in its own right, for various different reasons. But it also reminded me, coming so hot on the heels of yesterday’s post about UK genebanks, of an intriguingly similar reference I’d run across a few weeks ago on the website of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden:
Our National Collection of Tulipa (species only) is believed to be the only surviving collection in the country recognised under the Ministry of Agriculture’s special collection scheme that was introduced after the Second World War. The origins of the collection, however, go back much further and lie in a tragedy. William Dykes, master of Charterhouse School, keen amateur gardener and botanist, and Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), was a passionate collector of two bulbous genera, Tulipa and Iris. Sadly, in November 1925, only a week after receiving the Victoria Medal of Honour from the RHS, Dykes was killed in a motoring accident.
A sad story indeed, but what is this “Ministry of Agriculture … special collection scheme that was introduced after the Second World War”? I tweeted the reference to Prof. Brian Ford-Lloyd, who might be expected to know about plant genetic resources matters in the UK, and he had not heard of any such scheme, but pointed me in the general direction of the National Archives website.
Bingo! Or at least maybe. Because a little searching soon resulted in a reference to the document “National Species Collections of Flowers: grant to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew“, dated 1948-1957. Now, I don’t have access to the document in question, so I’m not sure if this “National Species Collections of Flowers” thing is the same as the CU Botanic Garden’s “Ministry of Agriculture … special collection scheme” or indeed Plant Heritage’s “National Plant Collections” programme. Maybe someone out there can clarify the matter. And maybe even tell us if that tulip collection is indeed the last of its ilk.
In the meantime, I choose to marvel at the fact that in a post-war Britain beleaguered by rationing and grappling with all sorts of social problems, the Ministry of Agriculture supported the setting up of a National Species Collections of Flowers.
Nibbles: DIY plantains, Poppies, Fruit portions, EU seed law workshop, Sustainable intensification, Nutrition & ag, Traditional medicine, Soil maps, US biodiversity maps, Genomics & genebanks, Indian seed film, Food preservation
- Someone needs to tell the Los Angeles Times that plantains are not the “tropical cousin of the banana”.
- Someone else needs to tell “British and American agricultural advisers” that poppies are generally going to be a better bet than cotton in Helmland Province. Like they were in Ghazipur.
- Is there anyone who can tell schools not to serve whole fruit, when children prefer bite-sized pieces?
- And who will tell us what happens at the Workshop in the EU Seed Law, in Vienna today and tomorrow?
- In which we are once again told that sustainable intensification is the answer, but not how to do it.
- A tool for helping agricultural development types figure out what to do about nutrition.
- Let the Times of India tell you about how wild fruits and seeds are used in traditional medicine.
- ISRIC tells the world about its new soil maps of Africa.
- And the US government about its biodiversity, also in maps.
- Lots of people recently told their stories of how genomics is going to revolutionize genetic resources use to a meeting in ICRISAT, and now ICRISAT tells us.
- A new film tells the story of rice savers in India. Not, presumably, though, Bihar.
- Are you really telling me Genghis Khan was a food waste champion?