Nibbles – Page 432 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

February 2, 2008

Plantstress website

All you ever wanted to know about helping plants cope with environmental stresses.

February 1, 2008

New GFU publication

Geographic indications to the rescue of agrobiodiversity.

January 31, 2008

Survey of European attitudes to biodiversity loss published

Europeans worried about biodiversity loss. Agrobiodiversity unavailable for comment.

January 30, 2008

Origin of European potatoes

DNA from old potato herbarium specimens re-writes textbooks.

January 30, 2008January 31, 2008

New book

Lost African fruits found.

- China is building its germplasm collection at the National Frigid Zone Crop and Soybean Germplasm Resources Mid-term Bank in Harbin. Cool.
- Driscoll’s helped build China’s blueberry industry, then discovered that knowledge, infrastructure and genetics have a habit of escaping. Not so cool.
- Meanwhile, the Philippines wants its rice collection to hit 21,000 varieties by the end of the year. IRRI unavailable for comment.
- Italy is establishing a major global olive genebank. Unclear where it fits in with other major global olive genebanks, but some redundancy is good.
- FAO showcases Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, where crops, landscapes and traditional knowledge have survived together. Like olives in Italy, I guess.
- The mangelwurzel is making a comeback, because apparently forgotten root vegetables just need better publicity, and not a fancy GIAHS.
- Ohio growers are trying to save the pawpaw just as Americans are discovering it, partly because of better publicity.
- BeanGPT is bringing AI to breeding and farming beans. Maybe it can help the mangelwurzel and pawpaw too?
Published on September 23, 2026