- Nutritional variation in baobab (Adansonia digitata L.) fruit pulp and seeds based on Africa geographical regions. Malawi has the most nutritious types.
- A valid name for the Xishuangbanna gourd, a cucumber with carotene-rich fruits. Cucumis sativus L. var. xishuangbannanensis Qi & Yuan ex S.S.Renner, var. nov., if you must know.
- Population genetic analysis of a global collection of Fragaria vesca using microsatellite markers. The Icelandic are different from the other European populatons.
- Spatially explicit multi-threat assessment of food tree species in Burkina Faso: A fine-scale approach. All species threatened everywhere, but especially by climate change.
- Use and Misuse of Material Transfer Agreements: Lessons in Proportionality from Research, Repositories, and Litigation. Horses for courses.
- Temperature increase reduces global yields of major crops in four independent estimates. “Without CO2 fertilization, effective adaptation, and genetic improvement, each degree-Celsius increase in global mean temperature would, on average, reduce global yields of wheat by 6.0%, rice by 3.2%, maize by 7.4%, and soybean by 3.1%.”
Nibbles: Community seed bank, Weird chocolate, Rice breeding, “Super” plants, Quinoa, Bush tucker
- Mr Chetri’s genebank.
- Ruby chocolate. You heard me.
- The next Green Revolution won’t be like the first one. Phew.
- Ideas that will change the world include “super plants” like enset. Right.
- But not, surprisingly, quinoa.
- Or bush tucker.
Nibbles: Cyprus seeds, Vietnamese rice, Policy briefs, English breakfast tea, Magic mushrooms, Peanut ontology Moccasin Boots, GeoAgro, Zea archaeology, Oenoarchaology, Old ham, ICRISAT genebank, Coffee podcast, ITPGRFA, Amphicarpaea bracteata
- “It is like archaeology to me. When you save an ancient seed it is like saving a sculpture. It represents the culture, tradition and history. Different types have different traits and intense flavours, like tomatoes years ago for example.”
- Vietnamese specialty rices direct from the genebank. Totally unrelated to this NY Times video-essay on Hmong rice farming.
- Time for tea.
- Making coffee good again. Jeremy explores fair trade and Fair Trade. Do tea now, please, Cherfas.
- ‘Shrooms got magic horizontally, man.
- Why do circus peanuts taste of bananas?
- Bringing back the mouse bean. Which may or may not taste of bananas.
- Cool maize book to round off the Native American crops trifecta.
- Oh no, here’s another one. Pinning down maize domestication.
- Funky ICARDA agroclimatological app.
- REALLY old Italian wine. And something to go with it.
- ICRISAT has a genebank in Zimbabwe too.
- Plant Treaty transfers hit a milestone.
- Policy brief on policy briefs. Homework: do a killer policy brief on any of the above.
Brainfood: Sustainability index, Beet wild relative, Participatory goats, Sarma, Wild wheat & drought, Ahipa conservation, Saving genebanks, Chinese cattle, Bolivia & CC, Seed systems, Cereal residues
- Sustainability assessment of agricultural systems: The validity of expert opinion and robustness of a multi-criteria analysis. Experts know their stuff.
- Genetic diversity of Patellifolia patellaris from the Iberian Peninsula, a crop wild relative of cultivated beets. 271 individuals, 10 sites, maybe 3 genetic groupings?
- Production system and participatory identification of breeding objective traits for indigenous goat breeds of Uganda. Resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses are the priority.
- Plant diversity for sarma in Turkey: nature, garden and traditional cuisine in the modernity. 73, including 3 endemics.
- Identification of ecogeographical gaps in the Spanish Aegilops collections with potential tolerance to drought and salinity. Evaluation avant la lettre.
- Trends and drivers of on-farm conservation of the root legume ahipa (Pachyrhizus ahipa) in Bolivia over the period 1994/96–2012. Price is too low.
- The Vulnerability of Plant Genetic Resources Conserved Ex Situ. The problem: “…genebanks around the world are generally under stress, largely from inadequate public investment, weakened political support, and insufficient stakeholder engagement.” The solution: privatization, commodification, consolidation, prioritization, communication.
- Species composition and environmental adaptation of indigenous Chinese cattle. Taurine-indicine cline N-S, with traces of banteng, gayal and yak.
- Climate change and crop diversity: farmers’ perceptions and adaptation on the Bolivian Altiplano. Maintaining multiple varieties still done, despite not seen as climate adaptation.
- A Risk Assessment Framework for Seed Degeneration: Informing an Integrated Seed Health Strategy for Vegetatively Propagated Crops. Actually not seed, but rather what to do about pathogen build-up in vegetative planting material. Turns out farmers can be quite good at producing clean material if they can choose healthy plants.
- New criteria for the molecular identification of cereal grains associated with archaeological artefacts. Alkylresorcinols, basically.
Nibbles: Weird genebank, Wheat history, NJ blueberries, Xoloitzcuintle, Cemetery prairie, Tenure, Sunflower at USDA, Potato breeding book, Cullinary diversity, Genomics & breeding, Migration report
- There’s a genebank for algae and protozoans.
- How Turkey Red Wheat from Ukraine built Kansas.
- Taming the wild blueberry.
- History of the ugliest dog breed in the world.
- The prairie lives on among the dead.
- Speaking of which: land tenure and conservation.
- Conserving and breeding sunflowers in the US.
- Making potato breeding great again.
- M.S. Swaminathan recommends millets.
- Computing our way to food security.
- Food insecurity and migration.