- It’s that time again. National Public Radio eats weeds and other wild foods.
- It’s that time again. The complexity of Maple Syrups (but no mention of variety).
- It’s that time again. Mainstream media get hold of Striga control story.
- It’s that time again. Wheat fungus love from The New York Times to our friends at ICARDA.
- It’s that time again. Is quinoa kosher?
Nibbles: Wheat rust, Mill, Cassava
- A big-deal wheat rust conference started today at ICARDA in Aleppo, and there are various webby ways to keep in touch, like RSS (pointless?) and Twitter.
- Stop Press: Wheat rust presentations now on SlideShare.
- A windmill in south London. Jeremy says, “I hope it grinds slow, but exceeding fine.”
- Cassava!
Brainfood: Processing, Berries, Bush tomato, Rwanda, Bean erosion, Agroforestry seed, Trees, Rice nutrition
- Special issue of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences on food processing, “a critical variable in human economies and social and symbolic systems.” Looks like the editorial is open to all.
- Investigation of genetic diversity in Russian collections of raspberry and blue honeysuckle. Some of them are much richer than others.
- Solanum centrale, bush tucker: new microsatellites reveal diversity and polyploidy; and it benefits from arbuscular mycorrhiza, especially in low P soils.
- The Crop Intensification Program in Rwanda: a sustainability analysis. It isn’t.
- Wholesale replacement of lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus L.) landraces over the last 30 years in northeastern Campeche, Mexico. There was.
- Certification of agroforestry tree germplasm in Southern Africa: opportunities and challenges. Need a scheme based on the FAOs Quality Declared Seed (QDS) with truth-in-labelling, with 3 germplasm categories (audit, select and genetically improved) as a start.
- And speaking of trees … Silver fir stand productivity is enhanced when mixed with Norway spruce: evidence based on large-scale inventory data and a generic modelling approach. Diversity good for silver firs, no effect on Norway spruce.
- Genotypic variation and relationships between quality traits and trace elements in traditional and improved rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes. Traditional varieties have more.
A different substitute for coffee
Personally, I’m not much in favour of ersatz anything, but sometimes the short word is as good a signifier as anything. Vegetarian burgers, for example, tells you, very roughly, what you’re getting (not much). So too with various substitutes for coffee, many of which are promoted precisely because they are caffeine free. Coffee, in this case, I suppose means vaguely bitter, brown, hot beverage, possibly refreshing. Even before coming to Italy I had been aware of Caffé d’orzo, “coffee” made from ground, roasted barley (though not the extent of the marketing surrounding it). A fellow blogger, however, introduced me to a new Italian “coffee” that had been in danger of extinction and is now more widely available.
MikeH shares his discovery of Altrei coffee, made from Lupinus pilosus, grown by the villagers of Altrei near the Italian Alps. And as he says:
A nitrogen fixer with an amazing blue flower that gives us a coffee substitute. It doesn’t get much better than that. Even if the coffee doesn’t cut it, we still have a spectacular nitrogen fixer that the bees in the orchard will love.
In the interests of science I need to see whether I can find that coffee here in the city. And the SeedZoo that MikeH mentions might repay study for those of you looking for a little horticultural diversity for your plot (though I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t bemoan the lack of proper botanical names).
Nibbles: SEARICE, R&D, Sustainable intensification, Biofortification, Chillies, Safe movement, Mangoes, Weeds, Berries, Blueberries, Cerrado
- SEARICE explains its approach to seed sovereignty and farmer participation.
- Nature on IFPRI’s report on agricultural R&D in Africa. Not pretty.
- Resilience Science on the UN Special Rapporteur’s sustainable intensification thing.
- The Gates Foundation is on a nutritional roll; most of yesterday’s posts are available from this round-up.
- New Mexico gets all protectionist about its chillies.
- IITA explains how it provides healthy germplasm. Various different interesting stories in there, stick with it.
- Farmer conservation power in India.
- How to control invasive species. Eat more weeds.
- Presentation on Trends in global nutrition and health: Local fruits and their potential importance for nutrition and health as seen at Pavlovsk berry meeting.
- Speaking of berries…
- The cerrado (and its crop wild relatives) is in trouble. We talked about this, weren’t you paying attention?