- Wild relative rescues potatoes. Which wild relative? Well for that you’ll have to read the paper. The FAQ on that. Or if you want an alternative. More the better, I guess. And just to remember what makes it all possible: diversity in fields and genebanks.
- Wild species not just useful to food security as sources of genes, of course. And more.
- Indigenous peoples save corn.
- Maybe some of them would be interested in this MSc at Bangor.
- Indigenous peoples can catch — and save? — fish after all.
- So is there stagnation in yield increases or what? Lobell reviews book that says maybe not.
Nibbles: Agroforestry slides, Sub1 slides, Fish slides, Fish in Neolithic, Silver bullets, Carbon credits, Camel domestication, Cuneiform barley
- All of the presentations from the World Congress on Agroforestry.
- Scuba rice in 13 slides.
- You got off easy on that last one. Here’s 55 slides on fish biodiversity and the food supply.
- Not much fish in the food supply of early farmers in Britain.
- New IFPRI book highlights technologies to beat hunger. Includes plant breeding. But no fish?
- Kenyan agroforestry organization gets C credits. Details sketchy though.
- The Bible got it wrong on camels. And that’s all I’m saying about that.
- Cuneiform tablets are so beautiful. Especially when they depict agricultural biodiversity. Via.
Nibbles: Texan blackeyed peas, Pest distributions, Better eucalypts, City gardens, Allopolyploidy, Chilean agroforestry, Sahel agroforestry
- Texas A&M builds better
mousetrapcowpea. - Huge survey of the distribution of crop pests.
- Spanish tree breeders assisting in the despoliation of the Ethiopian plateau. Totally unfair, I know, there’s plenty of reasons why improving eucalyptus production in Ethiopia is a good idea. But I just wish similar effort had gone into local trees.
- They increased the biodiversity of city gardens and nobody noticed. Wonder if it would have been the same in allotments. Meanwhile, however…
- It takes 4-5 million years for allopolyploids to become different enough for their hybrids to be sterile.
- Save the Espinal!
- More water wouldn’t help sorghum in the Sahel. Yes, you guessed it, the World Congress on Agroforestry is still going on.
Nibbles: Breeding data, Maize data, Bottle gourd origins, Agroforestry meet, EU seed, New pepper
- Pssst, you breeder there? Need a data management system? IPB have got one for you going cheap…
- Maybe you want to test that out on some CIMMYT wheat and maize lines? CIMMYT can help you out with a new database.
- Bottle gourd: Out of Africa after all, by sea.
- World Congress on Agroforestry social media mashup for Day 1.
- The latest on the new EU legislation on the marketing of seeds.
- New Piper species found in Ecuador, and it’s a doozy.
Nibbles: Variety adoption data, Georgian biodiversity, Species migration, Agroforestry shindig, Perennial breeding, Pacific history, Livestock emissions, Dandelion rubber
- New database on the adoption of modern varieties. No doubt will eventually include the ones coming out of this shiny new rice regional hub in Burundi.
- Useful summary of what’s happening in agricultural biodiversity in Georgia. No mention of ITPGRFA ratification, alas. You can find previous editions of the newsletter of the CGIAR Regional Program for Sustainable Agricultural Development in Central Asia and the Caucasus here.
- CSIRO come up with map of where and how fast species will move due to climate change.
- And Google Earth now has the underlying climate data you need to do that kind of analysis.
- World Congress on Agroforestry off the ground. You can follow on Twitter, #WCA2014. Also, you can read the blog. Do you remember when this type of thing didn’t even have an RSS feed?
- Did we miss this thing of perennial grain breeding at the Land Institute when it came out a year ago?
- Nice long podcast and Q&A from the Bishop Museum on the footprint Hawaiians left on their islands before contact. Great stuff on GIS analysis of suitability of ancient landscapes for taro and sweet potato. And, coincidentally, an equally long video clip on Pacific island landscapes more generally, and how they shaped the culture (and agriculture) of the Polynesians.
- ILRI DG chides The Economist on article suggesting that the only way to decrease livestock emissions is to go industrial: “There simply is no moral equivalent between those making poor food choices and those with no food choices at all.”
- New EU project on Russian dandelion does not seem to include boffins who recently turned off the rapid polymerization gene. And will they use the right species? And do some ex situ conservation? I’m not holding my breath on that last one.