Nibbles

Nibbles: Nutrition successes, Fruit grafting, Bee hero, VERY early ag, Humans bad shock, Biodiversity video

Do you have a nutrition success story? Asking for IFPRI.
What, another “Tree of 40 Fruit”?
Bee expert Prof. Dave Goulson is a BBC conservation hero.
Pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers did some sort of semi-cultivation of some plants, in one place, at one time, maybe.
Anthropogenic environmental change affecting pollinators and crop zinc levels shock.
Video on biodiversity loss mentions crop diversity shock.

In Australia, they’re ripping up vineyards.
Whereas in California, they’re going to breed 10,000 new grape varieties and make a new wine. Go figure.
Interview with the director of the Ethiopian national genebank, Dr Gemedo Dalle.
Deforestation et al. not responsible for Maya collapse after all. Jared Diamond unavailable for comment.
Black tomato a hit in Italy. Looks crap on pizza though.
The case for biofortification.
University of Florida sets up endowment to protect its research groves in face of citrus greening.
Googlesheepview. Nuff said.

Making a cup of “coffee.” Well, it is for Dunkin’ Donuts.
Pigs: yum or yuch?
FAO wants to know about how to teach healthy living in schools.
You’d have thought it difficult to have a healthy life in the Arctic, but people manage it.
Our rubber supply is in jeopardy. The raw material, not the product.
Ethiopian genebank in the development news.

CIMMYT pushes its newly-bred water-efficient maize in Africa.
AGRA not mentioned in the above but surely they were involved? If only in the extension part.
African universities also not mentioned, but probably less likely to have been involved. Alas.
Register for the next class of the European Plant Breeding Academy, which starts in October 2015. Not at an African university. At a US university.
ICRISAT pivots towards millets. Will probably involve breeding. And maybe universities.
As for genebanks, I’ve given up expecting namechecks in any of the above.

Video of Robin Allaby on that find of underwater Mesolithic wheat DNA off England. Well, that’s just the intro. Most of the rest is about the movement of flax north through Europe.
There’s a great Facebook group on the taros (or kalos) of Hawaii.
Weird coloured potato could be a hit Down Under.
New yams for Guadeloupe. No news on their colour.
Nice scenery and wine. Sign me up.
Also on the UNESCO heritage list: China’s rice terraces.
The Russian rye is coming! The Russian rye is coming!
Learn about the Oregon Wolfe Barley population. Thanks to Trust Me, I Am a Seed “Scientist”, another Facebook group worth following.