- “No a la droga, si al caucho y al cacao.”
- Spotting banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) with biochemical tests.
- The tree that owns itself. Take that, lawyers!
- “The old Chinese gardener in ragged blue coat and trousers with a wispy white beard who potters around smoking one of these long pipes with a tiny bowl — and a mongol cap, periodically performing elaborate grafting techniques on the plum tree.”
- Mexican coffee growers protect surrounding forest. Nepal forest community moving in similar direction?
- Mapping the competition between soy and forest in Brazil.
- Weird agrobiodiversity corner: pseudomonad bacteria help maize take up nutrients.
- Using herbicides to help prairie establishment (including sunflower wild relative).
- Stop press: “Agricultural genetics is one of the easier parts of the solution.”
- “…wildcats preferred resting sites in shelter structures near forest edges.”
- Video on Greek yogurt. Jeremy comments: “I’m going back to Crete.”
Nibbles: Byssus, Crops for the Future, African horticulture, Swine, Seeds, Soils, Phosphorus
- Jeremy gets all etymological about fibres. I guess he got fed up of experimenting with fermentation. And with questioning the Wisdom of the Sachs.
- Did we mention Crops for the Future has a cool new website? Subscribe!
- “Inside Africa’s First Global Horticulture Congress“
- We missed the 5th World Congress of Dry-cured Hams. Who knew? Time did.
- In Hawaii? Got seeds to swap? Go to the Amy B. H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in Captain Cook.
- In Australia? Want better soil? Listen to Maarten Stapper. Via.
- Phosphorus redux. You pays your money …
Nibbles: Phosphorus, Water lilies, Polish sheep cheese
- The looming P crisis. As is there’s not enough to worry about.
- Water pest makes itself useful in the Philippines.
- “To promote real Oscypek, Zakopane’s tourism bureau has created a special tour allowing visitors to find the mountain meadow huts of 25 baca cheesemakers.” Sign me up.
Nibble: Coconut, Punjab, Oak barrels, Schools, Podcasts, Origins squared, Apples, Fruit book
- Coconut beetle attack in Cambodia.
- Indian Green Revolutionary goes organic.
- Forests leave fingerprint in wine.
- School gardening in Ghana, farmer field school for women and children in Panama.
- WWF launches podcast series “The Wild Things.” Bioversity to counter with “The Cultivated Things.”
- Oldest pottery found in Chinese cave with oldest rice.
- The transition to agriculture “was entered into slowly and reluctantly.” Evidence from the Netherlands, of all places.
- Got an apple orchard? Wanna be a star?
- Hunting down The Fruit Hunters.
Nibbles: CGRFA, Livestock atlas, ITPGRFA, Bighorn, Japan, Wild Europe, Svalbard
- The Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture re-launches its website. And also the Global Livestock Production and Health Atlas (GLiPHA). Must be an FAO thing.
- “We are grateful to the governments who have made voluntary contributions to make this possible,” said Dr Shakeel Bhatti, Secretary of the Treaty’s Governing Body.
- Bighorn sheep at risk from climate change, computer says.
- The changing face of Japanese agriculture.
- “We are blurring natural boundaries: forests are no longer forests, meadows are no longer meadows. We have lost sight of eternity and infinity and are destroying nature for future generations.”
- Pope name-checks Svalbard Global Seed Vault.