Microbes

April 19, 2009June 28, 2009

The connection between wine and beer is agrobiodiversity

Sandor Katz has even had a poem written about his singular obsession:

Come on friends and lend me an ear,
I’ll explain the connection between wine and beer,
And sourdough and yogurt and miso and kraut,
What they have in common is what it’s all about.
Oh the microorganisms, Oh the microorganisms. . .

But don’t let that put you off. Katz is the author of Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. You can read the introduction, and various other excerpts online, as well as order the book, of course. Microbes are agricultural biodiversity too!

March 25, 2009March 25, 2009

Nibbles: Adaptation, Vegetables, Wood, Allotment, Earthworms, Salmon, Bees, Malaria, Potatoes, Apples

ICRISAT: “The impact of climate change on the yields under low input agriculture is likely to be minimal as other factors will continue to provide the overriding constraints to crop growth and yield.” So that’s all right then.
Book and CD-ROM on African indigenous veggies.
CD-ROM of wood characteristics.
The agrobiodiversity of “…the oldest and largest area of detached town gardens in Britain” being surveyed. Cultivated since 1605. Wow.
Earthworm Week! Yay!
“This is an exciting time for salmon conservation in the Pahsimeroi.”
Hawaiian native bees in trouble. Get in line.
The world has a malaria map. Very cool.
The Canary Islands tries to save its potatoes, sweet and otherwise.
The Forgotten Fruits Summit. You heard me.

February 12, 2009February 12, 2009

Nibbles: Hell, Honours, Pollution, Darwin, Genomes, Small companies, Tigernuts, Urine soft drink, Medicinal plants

A way out of hell: workshop on Database Challenges in Biodiversity Informatics
Potato man honoured.
Farm diversity reduces nitrogen runoff.
Darwin on the Farm, from our friends at the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
Yeast and wheat genome sequencing going gangbusters.
Coffee!
Fermented tigernuts more nutritious? No, they’re not from an endangered species. Via.
Cow water!
Lots of medicinal plants conservation projects going on in India.

January 23, 2009January 23, 2009

Nibbles: Peanut butter, Slow Food, Pacific, School, Carnations

“The legume that giveth can also taketh away.”
Content Coordinator at Slow Food Nation asks: “Am I a coniglio?“
Tracing Pacific migrations through stomach bugs.
Rethinking school lunch.
â€œThere is still a stigma to the flower.â€ Er, yes, and your point is?

January 13, 2009January 12, 2009

Fungi sorted

As part of a new conservation strategy, the UK is to merge two large fungal collections.

There are already 800,000 specimens of mushrooms, puffball, toadstools and micro-fungi kept in the Jodrell Laboratory at Kew, including the specimens collected by Charles Darwin. Some 400,000 collection from the CABI research institute will be added, including a specimen of Sir Alexander Fleming’s penicillin producing culture, 138 specimens of the potato blight organism and the key reference sample of the Dutch elm disease that changed the face of the English landscape in the 1970s.

I guess that must include both preserved and living material, but I could be wrong. What about doing the same rationalization for plant genetic resources collections? Well, one bit of agrobiodiversity at the time, eh?