- First of all, I need a cup of coffee.
- Stop Press: Britain’s orchards neglected. Prince Charles to be called in to help?
- Eating the wild, in San Francisco and San Diego.
- IFAD on what African farmers need: infrastructure, insurance, investment. Apparently.
- Harvesting sesame in Greece: The video.
- Filipinos make wine from Hawaiian traditional food. Strange the Hawaiians hadn’t thought of that. But perhaps they did.
- And while we’re on the subject of booze…
- Destroying the Pantanal and Cerrado in a sustainable manner.
- Hey, it’s Hemp History Week! And you know how to celebrate that, don’t you.
Nibbles: Fair mangoes, Rice domestication, Saline collections, Spice collections, Aquaculture, Salmon
- Fair trade Haitian mangoes hit the shelves.
- Molecular boffins use nifty new toys to re-write rice history. Until the next time.
- The genebank of the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture in Dubai has found material suitable for, ahem, saline agriculture.
- The genebank of the Indian Institute of Spices Research in Calicut has a large collection of, ahem, spices.
- The downside of tilapia.
- And, speaking of fish, it’s not all bad news.
Nibbles: Food production, Mauka
- “A new initiative to help pastoralists and smallholder farmers cope with the twin pressures of drought and climate change.” Yes, but what is the initiative going to do?
- Rhizowen gets mawkishly paternal about his mauka.
Brainfood: Biotechnology, Pollinators, Mulberries, Rice blast, Locavores, Roselle, Cassava, Protected areas, Traditional vegetables, Vitis, European diversity
- Agricultural biotechnology for crop improvement in a variable climate: hope or hype? Your guess is as good as mine.
- Pollinator insects benefit from rotational fallows. They do indeed.
- Biological and productive characteristics of silkworm mulberry varieties of different ploidy and their use for raising silkworms in different seasons. Amazing; more silk faster from polyploid mulberries.
- Mapping quantitative trait loci conferring blast resistance in upland indica rice (Oryza sativa L.). They’re there.
- Food relocalization for environmental sustainability in Cumbria. Fair enough, but what, actually, are the locavores going to eat?
- Relationships among twelve genotypes of roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) cultivated in western Mexico. Twelve genotypes split into two groups, could be important for breeding and production.
- Variation in qualitative and quantitative traits of cassava germplasm from selected national breeding programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. There is some, but not for everything.
- Global protected area impacts. There are some, but not everywhere.
- Diversity, geographical, and consumption patterns of traditional vegetables in sociolinguistic communities in Benin: Implications for domestication and utilization. 245 species, only 19% cultivated, with big differences among ethnic groups and geographical areas. Research and promotion needs identified.
- Observed trends in winegrape maturity in Australia. 1.7 days earlier per year for 1993–2009, 0.8 days earlier per year for 1985–2009.
- Still a lot of diversity out there, Europe edition: common bean in Sicily, melons near Madrid.
Nibbles: Plectranthus, Roads, Fast food, Dog food, Hybrid rice, Mapping climate change, Turf, Cassava, iPhone app, Zizania, Rice
- Livingstone potato (Plectranthus) on the menu in Burundi. Yeah but what does it taste like?
- The world’s roads mapped. About time too.
- The world’s convenience food made better. Maybe.
- Dog cooking pot from ancient China. Woof. Via.
- Hybrid rice backfires. Via.
- Mapping the impacts of climate change. Only country level though.
- Native lawns better. But are they greener?
- JSTOR does a cassava roundup despite hating tapioca.
- Biodiversity monitoring? There’s an app for that.
- Wild rice (not a wild relative of rice, mind, but sacred to the local Native Americans) vs the copper-nickel mining industry.
- Slideshow on rice (the real thing) in Vietnam.