- Yams up in the air, but in a good way.
- Yet another couple of things on how “ancient crops” will save us all. All crops are ancient. Well, except the kiwi.
- Lovely little film on a lovely sweet-potato-growing New Zealand couple to make up for that uncalled-for dig at the kiwi. Made my day.
- Engage with kiosk holders, don’t hassle them.
- Review of a book on the quixotic attempt to resynthesize the dog. Why bother?
- More Italian salami than you can shake a stick at.
- Might go well with some artisanal Mexican corn whiskey.
- Cassava is “pointed in the direction of extinction.” Thank goodness for genebanks, eh?
Nibbles: ICARDA genebank, Mexican honeys, NWFP news, Schisandra, Swimming camels, Barley genome, Silly video, Tasty breeders, Tall maize, Praying for the prairie, Rosaceous breeding, Millet fair, Sesame entrepreneurs, European AnGR, Thai gardens, Apple resistance, Native Californians
- Latest on the ICARDA genebank from the author of The Profit of the Earth.
- Honey diversity in Mexico.
- Speaking of which, did we already point to the new, improved Non-wood Forest Products Newsletter?
- The schisandra berry is apparently helping save the panda. Yeah, I never heard of it either, but more power to its elbow.
- Make your day better by looking at pictures of aquatic camels.
- Oh, here we go, cue the endless stream of stories about how genomics will save beer.
- “In the last century, 94% of the world’s seed varieties have disappeared.” No, they bloody haven’t. Only linking to this for completeness.
- Breeders get into flavour. Because celebrity chefs.
- That’s one tall maize plant. No, but really tall.
- The Great Plains are in Great Trouble: “Hundreds of species call the prairie home… A cornfield, on the other hand, is a field of corn.”
- A project dedicated to the genetic improvement of US rosaceous crops. Love that word. Rosaceous.
- Eat those millets!
- Sesame opens doors in Tanzania. See what I did there?
- Interview on conserving Europe’s livestock diversity.
- WorldVeg empowers women through gardening. I know how they feel. Well, kinda.
- Want a Forbidden Apple? You know you do. #resist
- “Accustomed to seeing crops planted in straight rows featuring one or a few different varieties, Muir and his European predecessors were not prepared to recognize this subtler form of horticulture. And so they viewed California Indians as lazily gathering the fat of a landscape they had hardly touched.”
Nibbles: Investing in food, Henna botany, Buckwheat promotion, Mapping India, Optimism, Genetic diversity, Forest cocktails
- Psst, you have any examples of investments for healthy food systems? What do you mean, you don’t.
- Paint it henna.
- Pleading for pseudocereals. In Switzerland?
- Mapping India’s trees. Among other things.
- To save biodiversity, look on the bright side. Easy for you to say.
- The genetic level of biodiversity makes important contribution to ecosystem services. In birds. Right.
- Taste the forest. In cocktails.
Nibbles: Treaty & UPOV, Minor millets redux, Maize replacement, Amaranth et al., Squash story squashed, Potato podcast, Food security webinar, Plants Day, Repast magazine, German beer, Coffee strategy, ILRI genebank
- The ITPGRFA and UPOV need to sort out their connection.
- Bring back our millets.
- And our sorghum and pigeonpeas too.
- And the milpa.
- And speaking of milpa crops, the real story of that large, old squash.
- Since we’re at it, bring back the potato too. To the people.
- Yet another interesting webinar which I missed. Wonder whether they talked about the above. Anyone?
- Still have time to prepare for “Fascination of Plants Day” on 18 May 2017, though.
- Repast: “the First-Ever Food History Magazine”. ‘Nuff said.
- Gotta love those German purity laws.
- A strategy for conserving coffee genetic resources takes shape. Now for the money…
- New forages genebank opens at ILRI in Ethiopia.
Brainfood: Tomato chemicals, Photoperiod, Grain phenotyping, Hawaiian ag, Domestication primer, Symbionts, Turkish wheat, Yam bean diversity, Crop health, Walnut diversity, Agrobiodiversity theorising, Sea pigs, NERICA impacts, Nutrient production
- Multi-perspective evaluation of phytonutrients – Case study on tomato landraces for fresh consumption. Fancy maths proves different tomato varieties taste different.
- Adaptation to the Local Environment by Modifications of the Photoperiod Response in Crops. It’s all down to a few mutations in all crops.
- Evaluation of the SeedCounter, A Mobile Application for Grain Phenotyping. Seems like a lot of work to just be able to measure wheat seeds, but boys will have their toys.
- Indigenous Polynesian Agriculture in Hawaiʻi. Both intensive and extensive.
- How to make a domesticate. It takes a long time, and involves lots of genes.
- Symbiosis limits establishment of legumes outside their native range at a global scale. Non-symbiotic legumes have spread further than symbiotic ones into non-native areas.
- Wheat Landraces Currently Grown in Turkey: Distribution, Diversity, and Use. More than half of morphotypes (59%) lost since 1920 overall, but none in some areas.
- Ecotypic differentiation under farmers’ selection: Molecular insights into the domestication of Pachyrhizus Rich. ex DC. (Fabaceae) in the Peruvian Andes. Separate Amazonian and Andean lineages, and P. tuberosum arising from P. ahipa.
- Crop health and its global impacts on the components of food security. To better understand acute impacts, model systemic ones.
- Climate-Related Local Extinctions Are Already Widespread among Plant and Animal Species. About half of about 1000 species showed local extinction.
- Rethinking the history of common walnut (Juglans regia L.) in Europe: Its origins and human interactions. Expansion from glacial refugia, followed by human exploitation. Compare and contrast with Asia. Or read about the whole thing in AramcoWorld.
- Agrobiodiversity and a sustainable food future. Apparently all you need to do to support the “use of biological diversity in sustainable agricultural and food systems” is to recognize that there are 4 interconnected themes: (1) genetic resources, ecology and evolution; (2) governance policy, institutions and legal agreements; (3) food, nutrition, health and disease; and (4) global change drivers with social ecological interactions.
- Eastern Mediterranean Mobility in the Bronze and Early Iron Ages: Inferences from Ancient DNA of Pigs and Cattle. Anatolia to southeastern Europe and back to the Levant across the Bronze-Iron Age transition. The Sea Peoples had pigs?
- Contribution of improved rice varieties to poverty reduction and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. NERICA adoption increased annual per capita income by US$4 per year from 2000, despite yields going down a bit.
- Farming and the geography of nutrient production for human use: a transdisciplinary analysis. Need to try to maintain production diversity as farm size increases. But let Jess Fanzo explain it better.