- It’s jujube season. Who knew? Anissa Helou, that’s who.
- Big video interview with Diane Ragone, breadfruit suprema.
- Today’s ho-hum genome sequence to promise improved agricultural crops: Brassica rapa.
- Genebank saves (and restores) a rare strawberry. I’m not registering here, but I read about it here. Cool approach.
- ICRISAT jumps on the small-seed-packets-are-beautiful bandwagon.
Brainfood: Roots, Ethnopharmacology, Heat tolerance, Food origin myths, Trees outside forests, Wild fruit tree agroforestry, Viruses in genebank, Reintroduction
- Breeding crop plants with deep roots: their role in sustainable carbon, nutrient and water sequestration. Good for soil structure, good for C sequestration, good for yields. What’s not to like?
- Ethnopharmacology, food production, nutrition and biodiversity conservation: Towards a sustainable future for indigenous peoples. Ethnopharmacologists need to think more generally about nutrition, and a lot more about conservation. And a view on the whole “wonder herb” thing from two botanical garden boffins who protest way too much as far as I’m concerned.
- Modelling predicts that heat stress, not drought, will increase vulnerability of wheat in Europe. It’s the heat, not the humidity. But maybe wild relatives can help.
- The Virtuous Manioc and the Horny Barbasco: Sublime and Grotesque Modes of Transformation in the Origin of Yanesha Plant Life. Maize is the result of a virgin birth, chili peppers of a fart. I’ll buy that.
- Is there a forest transition outside forests? Trajectories of farm trees and effects on ecosystem services in an agricultural landscape in Eastern Germany. Yes, but.
- Biodiversity and socioeconomic factors supporting farmers’ choice of wild edible trees in the agroforestry systems of Benin (West Africa). Those factors are: how important the trees are for food and medicine and how accessible they are. Still no cure for cancer. Anyway, here’s what ICRAF thinks should come next: domestication, natch.
- Pome fruit viruses at the Canadian Clonal Genebank and molecular characterization of Apple chlorotic leaf spot virus isolates. There’s a lot of them. Well that can’t be good, can it?
- A long-term view of rare plant reintroduction. A previous review is way too pessimistic.
Nibbles: Drought, Babylonian gardens, Armenian flora, Urban veggies
- NASA says there has not been a drought-driven decline in plant productivity after all. Yeah but where’s my jet-pack, guys?
- Hanging Gardens of Babylon had date palms and tamarisk. At least.
- Edible wild Armenian plants.
- AVRDC on how to grow vegetables in all sorts of different containers.
Nibbles: CWR, Agroecology, Innovation, Tree domestication, Ancient pigs, La vida locavore
- Our friends at CIAT showcase our friend Colin showcasing crop wild relatives.
- The latest from Olivier De Schutter on agroecology.
- How to identify and nurture those elusive agricultural entrepreneurs.
- So that they can help you with tree domestication, for example?
- Pigs in ancient Egypt.
- Is the whole local food thing being taken too far?
Harvesting the bounty of weedy greens
That’s Violet, my sister-in-law. She’s harvesting weedy indigenous leafy greens from her (and my) mother-in-law’s farm at Gataka, near Limuru in Kenya. And talking to me about these interesting species at the same time. She’s mainly picking “terere” (Amaranthus hybridus), though she mentions “togotia” (Erucastrum arabicum) towards the end. Also “kahorora,” or pumpkin leaves, though of course that’s not a weedy species. Thanks, Violet.