Nibbles

Nibbles: Genebank, Guanaco, Maize, Wild food

Maintaining a citrus gene bank. Just the book you need if you have to, er, maintain a citrus genebank.
Guanacos need quiet.
Don’t understand this piece on maize germplasm conservation and use.
Indigenous food plants in trouble in the Philippines.

Unpacking the heat of chillies.
Debating pastoralism, a new journal.
Celebrating (instead of growing?) yams.
Economic Botany releases free download of paper on caimito domestication.
More than 50,000 people care about Pavlovsk Experiment Station. Unstoppable?
A bean diversity fair was held in Uganda on the 21st of June 2010. Did we miss it then?
Searching for the Blue Zebra … tomato. Wonder if AVRDC know about it.
Those blogging diplomats — How to make a scarf from a tree.
Tibet’s disappearing grasslands. Pastoralists see item 2 above.
IRRI DG says, in Latin America, that Latin America could be next global rice bowl. Well, he would, wouldn’t he. Very data-heavy presentation.
One VERY remote sunflower wild relative. Very cool.
Chaffey’s regular words of wisdom on anything botanical. Well, mostly wise. But more on that later…
The history of the apple in the early US.
IUCN does for African freshwater fish what it does best. Ring the alarm bell.

Perennial fodder crops to the rescue.
Cool bird flu maps. GIS to the rescue.
Persistent malnutrition? We know how to fix it. That’s the tragedy. Meanwhile, let’s consult the e-atlas.
Cassava and potato to the rescue.
Orange+purple sweet potatoes to the rescue.

Celebrating the Irish Seed Savers Association celebrations. We had wanted to be there…
CAS-IP on how to “break” the Plumpy’nut patent.
Cattle wild relative seen for first time in 10 years. Well, by scientists anyway.
“Initiatives that merely codify cultural products without taking the social-organizational context into account risk becoming little more than ‘museums of production.'” Ouch.
Millet domestication pushed back in time.
Antioxidant properties of traditional wild Iberian leafy greens. Yes, I know, this medicalizes nutrition, but I thought it was interesting that these wild species are still used.
“…a trait of the diploid species, which apparently looks undesirable, might in fact be highly valuable for the improvement of amphidiploids…”
“Food? We don’t need no stinkin’ food,” say UN negotiators.
UK ambassador’s observations on agriculture in Ukraine. Love the contrast between 100 ha fields of sunflowers and the table groaning under home-grown fruit and vegetables.
In other news, the UK’s ambassador to Ukraine has a blog. And so do a number of others. Sorely tempted to subscribe to their RSS.