- Does the pressure for impact compromise research? Thought-provoking post from CIFOR’s Director General.
- FAO wants your opinion on the FAO/IPGRI List of Multi-crop passport descriptors. They probably don’t need you to tell them that IPGRI has changed its name. Or do they?
- Ocapoppin’ at Rhizowen acres; 100 varieties! I’ll alert the National Geographic.
- Sacred groves sustain bio-cultural richness in Yunnan forest. Still.
Nibbles: Beautiful models, Beautiful bank, Organic FAO, Eskimo diet, Indian medicinals, Maya nut studentship, Fishy infographics
- Official confirmation of the need for better crop growth models.
- More on CIP’s high-tech spud bank. In other news, CIP also has banks of other Andean roots/tubers, but don’t get me started on that one.
- “FAO has relegated organic agriculture to a footnote in the discussion of food security in the long run.” Fighting talk. Wonder if that will change with the new DG.
- Cook like an Inuit.
- Cultivating medicinal plants in India. Let’s see how that goes.
- Wanna study the Maya nut?
- More great Guardian infographics, aquatic edition.
- “This one tastes like cotton candy.” Breeding strawberries the hard way.
Nibbles: Adaptation, Soil bacteria, AnGR, Edible flowers, Potato chips, Ancient beer
- July issue of CSA News, official magazine for members of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America, has article on “Crop Adaptation to Climate Change” based on official CSSA position statement, “Crop Adaptation to Climate Change.”
- Factsheet on bacterial diversity and why it’s good for soils.
- FAO guidelines for the In Vivo Conservation of Animal Genetic Resources discussed in Europe.
- Please eat the daisies. Or other flowers.
- Farming chips.
- Never thought I’d get bored of reading about ancient beer.
Nibbles: Cranberry pests, Productivity, Resistance breeding, Jackfruit, Oca etc, Millets, Root crops, Semen cryo
- Guess what. Cranberry pests prefer certain varieties.
- If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Estimating yield of food crops grown by smallholder farmers from IFPRI.
- CIAT first CG centre to publish peer-reviewed video, on resistance selection. In other news, there are peer-reviewed videos?
- CFTF draws our attention to Jackfruit – Forgotten Kalpavriksha, “a common trope”.
- $3.4 million worth of good news for food security and diversity in the Andes. “Small Andean tuber crops” involved.
- Minor millets star in new film shared by Bioversity.
- Want the Philippines to be self-sufficient in rice? Eat rootcrops. IRRI unavailable for comment.
- Way more than any sensible person will ever want to know about duck and goose semen.
Nibbles: Median strips, Vitamin A, Mapping in Kenya, Chaffey, Small farms, Rennell Island coconuts, Sweet potato breeding, Acacia nomenclature, Crop models, Pulque, Fruits
- Planting roadsides with natives, including crop wild relatives. And here comes the database.
- Orange Maize: The Movies.
- VirtualKenya really here. Mother-in-law beside herself.
- Plant Cuttings is out. And all of a sudden I’m in a much better place.
- Small is beautiful, farm edition. And as chance would have it, coffee farm edition. And urban edition.
- Dispute at iconic coconut plantation resolved. Apparently there are some really unique varieties there.
- I say boniato. For the first and last time.
- Acacia on the brink. Easy, tiger. The name, not the genus.
- We’re going to need a better model.
- Pulque comes back. Never knew it had gone away.
- Domesticating fruit trees in Kenya. Something for VirtualKenya?