Nibbles

Nibbles: High science, Methane-friendly rice, Gender, Indian priestesses, Banana extinction, Inka legacy, Diversity in ag, Yerba genome, Cucumber chains, Tomato relative, Agrobiodiversity in art

High-level agricultural scientists thinks high agricultural science will feed the world. Oh, and smart policies.
This new rice would qualify, I suspect.
Participatory varietal selection manual revised to take women into account. Someone mention high science?
No such manual needed in India, it seems.
The banana-is-doomed story sure has legs. Or hands.
What did the Inkas ever do for us?
Is agriculture diverse enough? That is the question.
Yerba mate gets sequenced. Because it can be.
Following an Indian cucumber down the value chain.
Thank your lucky stars for this weedy-looking tomato wild relative.
“We’re interested in the color, shape and sizes of the vegetables from 400 years ago, compared to modern cultivars of the same vegetables: the deep sutures on cantaloupe in Italian art of the Renaissance or the lack of pigmentation in pictures of watermelon compared to today.”
Quite a bit of agrobiodiversity featured in Day of Archaeology. Nice idea.

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.