- CIP’s high-tech genebank.
- “The project’s eventual aim is to plant several thousand trees at sites across Perthshire to act as a ‘living gene bank.'” What, because normally genebanks are dead?
- Millennium Seed Bank joins ICRAF’s BusyTrees thing. Which you can follow in about a million different social networking ways.
- Conservation Magazine does a number on crop improvement. Wait, what? Conservation Magazine? Yep, and with teaching resources.
- Fenugreek, barkeep, and make it a double.
- Ancient chocolate and corn routes.
- What species distribution models do you like?
Nibbles: Date palm sex, Heirlooms congress, World Camel Day, Latino livestock, Coconut craft, Hybridizing Alocasia, Sami reindeer, Serbian agri-environments, Honey, Feidherbia
- Qataris work out how to sex date palms.
- The National Heirloom Exposition revs its engine.
- World Camel Day is coming up. No, really.
- Latin Americans planning their next congress on the biodiversity of domestic animals. Cuy, anyone?
- The Art of Coconut Craft. Wonderfully kitschy.
- So, you want to breed Alocasia, do you?
- Sweden stops oppressing its main minority.
- High Nature Value farming in Serbia.
- Non-wood forest products are all very well, but…
- Yes, yes, Feidherbia will solve all the problems of the Sahel, now can I go back to sleep?
Nibbles: Buffalo, Future plants, Thai rice
- The International Buffalo Knowledge Resource Service has a website. No, really.
- Plants for a Future website includes crop wild relatives. No, really.
- Thai jasmine rice trademark pirated. No, really?
Viva the agrobiodiversity revolution
A final dispatch from the front lines of agrobiodiversity conservation and use. That is, the 6th Henry A. Wallace/CATIE Inter-American Scientific Conference on “Agrobiodiversity in Mesoamerica — From Genes to Landscapes” at CATIE in Costa Rica.
The participants at the last day of the 6th Wallace Symposium shared a warm glow. The people who I chanced to talk to all raved about the conference. Although agrobiodiversity suffers from being a vague term, it has the attractive ability to bring together a crowd of scientists from worldwide institutes, who obviously see great relevance in each other’s research. Everyone can appreciate the needs of farmers for a suite of integrated and sustainable options, including biodiversity at all scales, to enable them to cope with markets, pests and diseases, soils, climate, and — maybe most importantly — changes.
CATIE is in a prime position to integrate options with its stronghold in forest and agroecology research, watershed management, enterprise development and its international collections of cacao, coffee, peach palm and many other crops. Dr Ronnie De Camino, CATIE’s Deputy Director, stressed to the audience that the drivers of change are not slowing down and our actions are too slow. What is needed is a revolution. After this conference, I will certainly be looking to CATIE and the Mesoamerican region to lead the way in this agrobiodiversity revolution.
Nibbles: European plant conservation, Homegardens, Anthropogenic vegetation, Soil Association, Wheat and heat, Coconut meet, Pavlovsk beatdown, Plant species numbers, Vegetation and climate change, Genebank software
- How is Europe doing at saving its threatened plants? Paper and website available. How many crop wild relatives are threatened in Europe? I think it should be possible to work it out…
- Bioversity colleagues summarize their work on homegardens.
- Introduced plants can be useful too!
- Soil Association continues to quibble about need to double food supply.
- ICARDA looks for heat-beating wheat.
- “Coconut Biodiversity for Prosperity” meet coming up soon in Kerala. Local press excited.
- Jeremy sets the world straight on Pavlovsk.
- Kew et al. set the world straight on how many plants there are in the world. Jury still out on the number of crop wild relatives.
- Vulnerability of vegetation to climate change varies around the world. Well there’s a thing now. Nice maps.
- If you’re running a livestock cryobank I’ve got the software for you.