- From GBDBH, a light glimmers: browse and search records of crop collecting missions.
- “Variations in early-season temperatures may alter substantially grapevine yield formation.” For Cab Sauv at any rate.
- Mixture of beans as good as resistant variety against anthracnose disease.
- Genome inversion spurs ecotypic differentiation.
- A review of medicinal plant markets.
- Today’s huge global dataset: “threats to human water security and freshwater biodiversity in global river systems.”
Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Baobab hybridization, Jackfruit, Vavilovia, Cowpea education, Lead, Bees, Banana wilt, Dariy cows, Pavlovsk, Drylands, School gardens, Genetic diversity in botanic gardens
- The value of Pavlovsk. Jeremy delivers a slap.
- CIRAD on kinky sex among the baobabs.
- “I had never heard that there were distinct varieties of the jackfruit, although of course such a thing was reasonable, so I naturally wanted very much to taste one.” Naturally.
- Wild relative of pea gets a weird hybrid in-ex situ conservation treatment.
- A Cowpea Story, an illustrative children’s book by Vicky Inniss-Palmer, tells the hopeful story of a cowpea named Catalina and her struggle to overcome illness and disease with the help of scientists. Meanwhile, scientists meet.
- Urban gardeners, beware lead. And nurture your pollinators.
- Reading this, anyone would think nobody had ever researched banana Xanthomonas wilt.
- Improved dairying in Kenya.
- Vavilov Institute’s comprehensive update on Pavlovsk.
- ICRISAT to put in place new market-oriented strategy which will use a “systems perspective in setting our priorities to ensure that all important issues along the dryland agriculture value chain are addressed.”
- Meanwhile, ASARECA asks for ideas on how to intensify one of those dryland systems in the face of climate change.
- ICIMOD promotes herbal gardens in schools.
- Botanic gardens get wrists slapped over their inattention to genetics.
Nibbles: Carnival, Local food, Rice, Yacon, Coffee
- Science for the People blog carnival is up, answering questions.
- How fashion turns the local glamorous, exotic and desirable — foods edition.
- Sub-1 rice gene takes over local varieties, changes nothing except flood tolerance.
- Rhizowen may be suffering from inadvertent introgression, in his yacon.
- New variety — just the one — resistant to coffee berry rust and leaf rust released in Kenya.
Nibbles: Genebank, Guanaco, Maize, Wild food
- Maintaining a citrus gene bank. Just the book you need if you have to, er, maintain a citrus genebank.
- Guanacos need quiet.
- Don’t understand this piece on maize germplasm conservation and use.
- Indigenous food plants in trouble in the Philippines.
Nibbles: Ireland, Plumpy’nut, Saola, Food heritage protection, Millet, Wild veggies, Brassica, UNMDGs, Ukraine
- Celebrating the Irish Seed Savers Association celebrations. We had wanted to be there…
- CAS-IP on how to “break” the Plumpy’nut patent.
- Cattle wild relative seen for first time in 10 years. Well, by scientists anyway.
- “Initiatives that merely codify cultural products without taking the social-organizational context into account risk becoming little more than ‘museums of production.'” Ouch.
- Millet domestication pushed back in time.
- Antioxidant properties of traditional wild Iberian leafy greens. Yes, I know, this medicalizes nutrition, but I thought it was interesting that these wild species are still used.
- “…a trait of the diploid species, which apparently looks undesirable, might in fact be highly valuable for the improvement of amphidiploids…”
- “Food? We don’t need no stinkin’ food,” say UN negotiators.
- UK ambassador’s observations on agriculture in Ukraine. Love the contrast between 100 ha fields of sunflowers and the table groaning under home-grown fruit and vegetables.
- In other news, the UK’s ambassador to Ukraine has a blog. And so do a number of others. Sorely tempted to subscribe to their RSS.