- A view from Papua New Guinea on a project to prepare PNG agriculture for climate change.
- How to grow a properly biodiverse pasture. Hint: money isn’t enough.
- Another Nagoya round-up. And another.
- Sesamum monographed.
- Award for CIMMYT genebank.
- African rice domestication deconstructed.
- Traditional practices bad for Nigerian children, good for Chinese fish.
Nibbles: Solanum nigrum, Blue tomato, Chickpea, COP10, Phosphates
- Leafy vegetable cures cancer! Well, nearly.
- Blue tomato seeds available. Well, nearly.
- Everything you ever wanted to know about chickpeas. Well, nearly.
- COP10 all over bar the shouting. Well, nearly.
- Phosphate supplies assured. Well, nearly.
Giant southern curled mustard in the Traditional Croplands
I couldn’t identify one of the plants in the Traditional Croplands exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, but a quick post on their Facebook page solved the puzzle. Here’s the plant.
It turns out to be Giant Southern Curled Mustard, which GRIN suggests is Brassica juncea subsp. integrifolia var. crispifolia. This is described as an “old southern favourite,” or words to that effect, by many of the heirloom seed merchants I consulted online. There is also an ethnobotanical record online of the species being used by Native Americans, but only as a medicinal, at least in the book I was able to consult. Perhaps it is a relatively recent adoption.
Nibbles: ABS, Climate change and crops, Beer proteome, Cattle SNPs, Nepal genebank, Sceletium tortuosum, CBD, Weeds, Vitamin A
- Indian academics voice some reservations about CBD ABS regime. Maybe a multilateral approach would be better?
- CIAT warns about climate change effect on crops. Kenyan farmers know all about that. And Koreans too. Oh, and speaking of kimchi…
- Beer proteome means better beer. Fundamental research indeed.
- Cattle breeds are real. And the gaur?
- Nepal inaugurates genebank.
- San benefit from bioprospecting license for medicinal plant.
- Ahmed Djoghlaf says…
- Weeds? Not weeds. Cities as biodiversity hotspots? Oh I give up.
- Orange cassava due to one amino acid.
Nibbles:Collecting missions, Grapes, Beans, Genome, Local markets, Water
- From GBDBH, a light glimmers: browse and search records of crop collecting missions.
- “Variations in early-season temperatures may alter substantially grapevine yield formation.” For Cab Sauv at any rate.
- Mixture of beans as good as resistant variety against anthracnose disease.
- Genome inversion spurs ecotypic differentiation.
- A review of medicinal plant markets.
- Today’s huge global dataset: “threats to human water security and freshwater biodiversity in global river systems.”