Neglected species

April 19, 2015

A book worth waiting for

With our own hands

An old friend, Frederik van Oudenhoven, and his friend and colleague Jamila Haider, are deep in the proofs of what looks to be a wonderful book. With Our Own Hands “tells, for the first time, the cultural and agricultural history of the Afghan and Tajik Pamirs, one of the world’s least known and most isolated civilisations”. Should be a great read, with stunning photographs to accompany the local recipes, essays, stories and poetry. Better yet, generous donors are allowing 1800 copies to travel back to the Pamirs to be given to communities, schools, cooks and libraries.

If you’re interested, you should pre-order. Details here.

April 6, 2015April 6, 2015

Brainfood: Resilience and diversity, Cold tolerant rice, Old baobabs, VIR, Local adaptation, Prunus phylogeny, Bactris mating, Land use change, Wheat landraces, Amazonian agrobiodiversity

Does Plant Species Richness Guarantee the Resilience of Local Medical Systems? A Perspective from Utilitarian Redundancy. It depends on how knowledge is distributed.
COLD1 Confers Chilling Tolerance in Rice. From a wild relative.
Searching for the Oldest Baobab of Madagascar: Radiocarbon Investigation of Large Adansonia rubrostipa Trees. 1,600 years seems to be the record.
Genetic resources of cultivated plants as the basis for Russia’s food and environmental security. VIR needs Roubles 425 million a year ($14.3 million).
Using archaeogenomic and computational approaches to unravel the history of local adaptation in crops. Models say that adaptation to higher latitudes was rapid, simple (few genes) and unstable.
Combining conservative and variable markers to infer the evolutionary history of Prunus subgen. Amygdalus s.l. under domestication. Almonds and peaches were domesticated on either side of the Central Asian Massif from different sections of the genus that had been there for 5 million years.
Conservation implications of the mating system of the Pampa Hermosa landrace of peach palm analyzed with microsatellite markers. Bactris effective population size in genebanks is too small.
Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity. Within-sample total terrestrial species diversity down by 13.6% globally. About the same for crop wild relatives?
Exploiting genetic diversity from landraces in wheat breeding for adaptation to climate change. It would be a good idea.
Household Agrobiodiversity Management on Amazonian Dark Earths, Oxisols, and Floodplain Soils on the Lower Madeira River, Brazil. Age of household head, size of household and area of land under cultivation predict amount of agricultural biodiversity managed.

April 2, 2015April 2, 2015

Nibbles: Old date, Cassava genomic selection, Citizen science double, Cover crops, Quinoa boom, Sorghum boom, Teff boom, Gluten, Malnutrition roundup, African veggies, Farmer2farmer, Double chocolate

That 2000-year old date palm seed is all grown up.
And since we’re talking ancient stuff: ornithology in the service of egyptology.
Citizen scientists track phenology.
Citizen scientists find new species.
Let’s hear it for cover crops.
Turns out it’s ok for hipsters to eat quinoa.
Sorghum takes over the Great Plains. (Well, not really.) And not only… Who needs quinoa.
Especially when you have teff.
And while we’re on gluten: need to make up for that off-colour quip in the last Nibbles.
Malnutrition. Mapped. Including that much-discussed Missing Middle? Hang on, wait, here’s another nutrition mapping thing.
African leafy greens in Benin get a video. Map that!
Farmers make good extensionists.
Chocolate workshops at Kew.
Caribbean chocolate to get a make-over. Somebody telling Kew?

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015

More millets than you can shake a stick at

Rather good advocacy video from the Deccan Development society.

Of course, you might get the impression from the film that nobody else has given millets a thought, but hey, that’s advocacy for you.

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015

Nibbles: Rabbit origins, New beans and rice, New maize, Fermentation, Grape bugs, Kenya supergoats, Peruvian edible insects, Betelmania, Sustainable cacao, Making cider, Land rights, Kew funding, Avocado origins, German genebank, Oman roadshow, Chinese agriculture then and now, Underground farm, Irish potatoes, Lactase history, Nutrition report, Breeding wheat, Pulse year, Perennial cereals, Shaker agriculture, Food conference, Lupin breeding, Tanzanian ag landscapes, Coffee film, American food, Breakfast around the world, Indian wild figs, Baobab, Fragmentation, History of breeding, MARDI fruits, IARI head, Wild pig genome, Breed typology

Yeah, I know, been slacking with the blogging again of late. Lots of travel. Will try to post about it a bit now I’m back. Here’s the usual back-in-the-office game of catch-up.

We start with something topical for Easter. The origin of the bunny: it’s not the genes, it’s the gene control control.
CIAT’s heat-resistant beans are all over the internet. IRRI’s new rices, not so much.
I hope they get names like Bill Tracy’s new open-pollinated maize variety.
Bugs come in communities, and they do best when they stay that way.
Even on grapes.
Gotta get me one of these Kenyan supergoats.
Are bugs next on Peru’s gastronomia menu? Probably not.
Ban the betel!
More on that we-need-GMO-to-save-chocolate thing. Because this?
Some like it hard.
Three steps to secure land rights.
“If the seeds are never grown, they will fizzle out. Who is going to sow them and harvest them to keep them fresh?”
The avocado shouldn’t be here. So sue me.
The Ghana News Agency (and nobody else) says there’s a new genebank in Berlin.
Oman’s biodiversity (including agricultural) goes on the road.
Chinese agriculture goes sustainable. Well, in theory. Including for buckwheat, presumably.
Maybe you can work out what this early Chinese flour was actually of: millet, barley and/or wheat?
Meanwhile, in Japan, the opposite of sustainable farming beneath a Tokyo street.
The Irish and the potato: in need of a reset?
Want to develop? Learn to metabolize lactose.
Ten research questions on nutrition.
Well at least this gluten nonsense ¹ is helping bring back some funky grains. And is spurring breeders. Who should perhaps be focusing on more important problems?
Pulses will get their 15 minutes in 2016.
The Land Institute is still at it, and still getting press.
The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing established one of the earliest seed companies in the US.
No, getting to the bottom of food ain’t easy.
Lupins better than soya in the UK, because breeding.
A Tanzanian mash-up: Farmers need the landscape. I’m not kidding. And yet…
There’s a film about coffee called “A film about coffee.”
“In the future, the American dream of big cars and burgers will need to be adjusted to more active transport and sustainable, healthy eating. Better is the new bigger. The world needs a new diet. And it is waiting for the US to take the lead.” Good luck with that.
Maybe start with breakfast?
Indians need their wild figs.
As much a African need baobabs, probably.
A fragmented forest is no forest at all. Well, almost.
BHL does domestication. As ever, great pix too.
Malaysia protects its fruits.
Who will head the Indian Agricultural Research Institute?
The pygmy hog has been sequenced.
A typology of livestock breeds.