Nibbles

Nibbles: Coca to cacao, BXV, Chinese gardening, Forest conservation, Amazon, Soil bacteria, Prairie, Genetics, Wildcats, Milk product

“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.”

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 …

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.

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.

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.