Category: Nibbles

Little bits of link goodness not worth a whole post

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Nibbles: New cassava, Community seedbank double, Rwandan beans, Knotweed et al., Seed systems, Adam Alexander, Uruguay genebank, Kelp biobank

  1. There’s a new cassava in town in Kenya.
  2. I wonder if it will end up in a community “seed” bank.
  3. …because they swear by them in Zimbabwe.
  4. Cassava is not the only American crops that’s important in parts of Africa: the cultural appropriation of beans in Rwanda.
  5. Some American crops didn’t make it very far out of America.
  6. Be it beans, cassava or sump/knotweed, what’s needed is a Quality-Declared Seed (QDS) system. Right?
  7. Well you also need someone to go around collecting the stuff in the first place.
  8. But don’t forget to back everything up in Svalbard, like Uruguay is doing.
  9. Well maybe not everything.
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Nibbles: Ghana genebank, Indian crop breeding, Bhutan genebank, Grafting, Vielfalt auf Feldern und Tellern

  1. Genebank pushes Bambara groundnut in Ghana.
  2. Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University develops new varieties, deposits them in Indian genebank.
  3. Bhutan’s national genebank explains its work.
  4. Grafting fruit trees in India to save them.
  5. All of the above contribute to SDG 2.5.
  6. All of the above are needed to get out of the food and climate crises. How? Crop Trust executive directors explains for German speakers.
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Nibbles: Old olive, Silphion, Heirloom watermelon, Calabrian chili, ICARDA genebank, Jamaica genebank, Tamil community seedbank, Forestry seeds

  1. Really old olive tree in the gardens of the mosque-cathedral of Cordoba is a lost variety.
  2. Long extinct medicinal spice plant not extinct after all?
  3. The next nearly extinct heirloom on our list is a watermelon from Virginia. Who knows, it may originally have been grown in Cordoba or Cyrenaica…
  4. And moving in the opposite direction, a really hot Calabrian chili pepper beats the heat.
  5. The ICARDA genebank is trying to find stuff that will beat the heat too.
  6. Jamaica is looking to beat the heat by establishing some new genebanks.
  7. Tamil Nadu going the community seedbank route, and why not? Jamaica please take note.
  8. An alliance of forestry outfits is pushing for a global seedbank infrastructure to support woodland restoration. Nothing if not ambitious. And much needed.
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Nibbles: Food security, CWR, Rice, Food crisis, Yams, Peanuts, Tuscan wine, SADC seeds, Lonely trees

  1. Handy primer on the effects of climate change and biodiversity on food security, courtesy of the House of Lords.
  2. Crop wild relatives could help with all three.
  3. Trouble brewing for rice. House of Lords nodding wisely.
  4. The trouble that brewed for wheat wasn’t quite as advertised. Spoiler alert: the price spike had to do with China buying up all it could. So is rice next then?
  5. No trouble brewing for yams now that they’re getting sequenced.
  6. Nor for peanuts in the Gambia, for different reasons.
  7. Sounds like everything is hunky dory for the Tuscan grape too.
  8. Good to see SADC is on the job.
  9. It may be too late for some trees though.