- G20 nations turn to agricultural research for food security. All you need to know.
- Would it be worth updating Borlaug on organics? A Prinz says “Yes!”
- Rhizowen gets oca to grow seed to seed. Can Cornish “potatoes” be far behind?
- Is it cassava‘s time?
- Molecular taxonomy helps an allergy sufferer.
- Lagging behind in development? Maybe you’re too diverse. Or not diverse enough. Difficult, in either case, to envisage the solutions.
- Agfax podcast on orange sweet potato in Uganda. Comment on the kuroiler goes for this too.
Brainfood: Sorghum core diversity, Indian mango diversity, Montia potential, Assisted migration, Corchorus diversity, Soil DNA, Fire!, Coffee pest, Earthworms
Making life simpler for you, we have created an open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here. If you’re already using Mendeley, feel free to join the group (and use it to suggest papers we might miss). You can also discuss papers there, but frankly, we’d prefer you to do that here. Or on Facebook. Even if you don’t use Mendeley, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the group and get stuff that way. Are we cool, or what?
- Variation in flowering time in sorghum core collection and mapping of QTLs controlling flowering time by association analysis. 4 QTLs and 7 loci detected under different conditions. Is that, like, a lot?
- Evaluation of genetic diversity among commercial cultivars, hybrids and local mango (Mangifera indica L.) genotypes of India using cumulative RAPD and ISSR markers. Just one big happy family.
- Montia fontana L. (Portulacaceae), an interesting wild vegetable traditionally consumed in the Iberian Peninsula. Aquatic herb has high fibre and lipids. High oxalate too though. Breeders enjoined to get to work. On Montia. Riiiiight.
- Taking stock of the assisted migration debate. It’s REALLY complicated. Scientists are not that great at explaining it. More work needed all round. But now we have fancy diagrams.
- Genetic diversity and relationships in Corchorus olitorius (Malvaceae s.l.) inferred from molecular and morphological data. Out of Africa. Ethiopia, to be exact.
- Meta-barcoding of ‘dirt’ DNA from soil reflects vertebrate biodiversity. Wonder whether it works with agricultural ‘dirt.’
- The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth. Entertaining gallop through the history of the use of fire to manage landscapes around the world and down the ages. Need to catch my breath here.
- Some like it hot: The influence and implications of climate change on coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) and coffee production in East Africa. That title just had to come sometime, didn’t it.
- A critique of earthworm molecular phylogenetics. So apparently “molecular phylogenetics is now on the verge of revolutionizing earthworm systematics.” Beyond satire.
Nibbles: Coffee lupins, Supply and demand, ICT, Cacao, Malnutrition
- Remember that lupin coffee? Mike H provides an update.
- Complex and scary: Resources Research picks over the USDA’s supply and demand figures after the heat and drought.
- USD1 million for ICT in East Africa. Hope they’ll be visiting us.
- USDA finds ancient cacao variety at altitude in Peru; chocolatiers delighted.
- “We’ve got a gap between evidence and policy.” Guess the field. No, really, I dare you. Venture a guess as to what he’s talking about here. Yep, could be anything.
More bhang for your buck
Yesterday’s Nibble about the way a high value-added agrobiodiversity product is produced in the Chu Valley of Kazakhstan…
It begins with a freshly showered person riding naked for hours on a clean, washed horse inside a two-meter-high “forest” … Afterwards, the human body and that of the horse are covered with a thick layer of resin mixed with sweat. This produces a substance that is usually dark brown in color, which is then thoroughly scraped off the human and horse’s bodies. The mixture is subsequently pressed, molded into bars, and dried.
…elicited from Dirk (on Facebook, via) the observation that in India “they must have a better method to collect concentrate…” The resulting product is shown above, thanks to ezola’s Flickr stream and a Creative Commons license. And thanks to Tom Maisey, and the same source, we can also see how the stuff is marketed in (some parts of) India.
Alas, I could find no conclusive photographic documentation of how they do things in the Chu Valley, although a music video and a movie trailer give some tantalizing hints.
Nibbles: Gardens, Food/nutrition jargon, Photos, Pacific livestock, Durian descriptors, Oysters, Thai breeders, Meat-reducing, Gender, Chinese fortification, G20
- Community veggie gardens in Cape Town.
- BNSP? WTF?
- AoB adds botanical picture search. Will nothing stop these guys? And meanwhile… Sheesh, is there something in the air today?
- How can Pacific livestock adapt to climate change? And don’t say they should learn to swim.
- How NOT to describe a durian.
- The continuously imminent demise of the Chesapeake Bay oyster.
- Plant breeders go on the rampage in Thailand.
- Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall turns out not to be a made-up name. Pity.
- Kenya’s agriculture increasingly depends on women. MIL unavailable for comment.
- “…because our idea of “adding more” has shaped the way we treat micronutrient deficiencies through food fortification globally, trying to integrate this in China is turning out to be problematic.” I bet it is.
- Montpellier G20 meeting looking for “effective and innovative research partnerships for development and better impact of research from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.” I hope they brought their pyjamas.