Category: Nibbles

Little bits of link goodness not worth a whole post

Posted on

Nibbles: Fonio beer, ICRISAT seed kits, Dark Emu, China potatoes, 3D genebank, Bioculture, Microbiome genebank, Nutrition, Michigan kiwi

  1. You can make beer from fonio.
  2. ICRISAT providing Niger and Chad with sorghum and pearl millet seed kits. Fonio next?
  3. No, Echinochloa turneriana next. In Australia. I love the Dark Emu Hypothesis, and not least for its name.
  4. CIP is helping China improve its potato crop.
  5. Won’t be long before China’s genebank has 3D images of all its holdings. I’d love to see the potatoes.
  6. Want to see the earliest known site of domestication of teosinte?
  7. UK builds first crop biome cryobank.
  8. How the private sector can help with a more nutrition-sensitive agriculture. Should it want to.
  9. You can grow kiwi in Michigan. Should you want to.
Posted on

Nibbles: Heirloom mixology, Renaissance breeding, Heirloom watermelon, Heirloom apples, British horses, Ancient grapes & wine, Potato cryo, Arboretum, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Rice breeding

  1. A self-described seed mixologist calls for a science fiction, rather than historical, approach to growing heirloom varieties. Excellent reading.
  2. The Renaissance approach to genetic mixology explained in a new book The Perfection of Nature.
  3. Sometimes, though, you just want a good old watermelon.
  4. Or a good old apple.
  5. Or indeed ‘the Swiss army knife of equines.’
  6. Or you want to know what ancient people ate and drank.
  7. So it’s a good thing we have genebanks, genebanks, genebanks…
  8. Including for rice.
Posted on

Nibbles: Crop diversity, Coloured rice, Saudi genebank, WorldVeg genebank, Mango genebank, USDA apple genebank, Green Revolution, Organic agriculture

  1. IFAD says we need diverse crops.
  2. KAUST says we need coloured rice.
  3. I hope it will go into Saudi Arabia’s new genebank.
  4. Genebank scientists says we need more collaboration.
  5. Goa thinks they need a new mango genebank.
  6. The USA already has an apple genebank.
  7. But will all these genebanks lead to a new Green Revolution…
  8. …or organic farming?
  9. Maybe both.
Posted on

Nibbles: Community seedbanks everywhere, USDA genebanks, Public sector plant breeding, Salinity tolerance, Food systems transformation

  1. Community seedbanks are so big in Zimbabwe that international NGOs are jumping on the bandwagon.
  2. More from the Cherokee Nation Seed Bank, very much a friend of the blog. International NGOs unavailable for comment.
  3. Community seedbanks are also in the news in Mexico.
  4. And in Peru, of course. Oh, here’s a nice video from Peru on Andean roots and tubers, courtesy of CIP, since we’re here.
  5. Indonesia too, you say? Yeah, why not.
  6. How to protect genebank collections from climate change, courtesy of USDA. Community seedbanks please take note.
  7. Who’s going to use all that diversity? Well public sector plant breeders of course.
  8. Yes, even plant breeders working on Salicornia.
  9. But how much of the 6 trillion dollars needed for food systems transformation is going to go to genebanks and plant breeding?