Nibbles

December 11, 2007

Efforts to conserve wild juniper

Yorkshire (UK) conserving wild Juniperus communis; gin drinkers too elated to comment.

December 11, 2007

Mopane worms

Mopane worms:Â a traditional source of protein in Botswana. I’ve tried them. They’re yummie.

December 11, 2007

Chestnuts coming back

Chestnuts roasting on open fires again. Bing Crosby unavailable for comment.

December 10, 2007

Vineyards benefit from integrated pest management

In Austraila, Fosters Wine Estates reduces pests by reducing pesticides; Sir Les Patterson unavailable for comment.

December 9, 2007December 9, 2007

Names from the Biodiversity Heritage Library

XML SOAP names are available from the Biodiversity Heritage Library: no geeks available for comment (but I suspect this could be important).

1. Frafra potato is having a moment: an indigenous West African tuber, adored locally and mostly ignored by science, out looking for its big commercial break.
2. Speaking of breakthroughs, this bus driver found his own, swapping the wheel for seed multiplication and turning five acres into a livelihood, proof that sometimes the missing link in a seed system is just someone willing to do the unglamorous middle bit well.
3. Which is, per Farming First, precisely Africa’s problem at scale: only 2.5% of smallholder seed in Sub-Saharan Africa comes from formal seed companies, so a few million more bus-driver-style multipliers wouldn’t hurt.
4. Meanwhile in the Balearics, the opposite direction of travel: the local seed bank is expanding to rescue tomatoes, onions and broad beans, and is looking for farmers willing to take them back.
5. Indigenous fruit trees in Malawi turn out to fight malnutrition and biodiversity loss at once. Happy coincidence?
6. Getting those trees into the ground well needs the same unglamorous groundwork as any good crop seed system: a Mongabay commentary argues that restoration campaigns skipping Indigenous and local seed knowledge are optimising for trees planted, not trees that survive.
7. And once you’ve got the saplings in the ground, you might want to monitor how they’re doing: enter Bruno, a pushcart rigged with mobile phones that can collect field data. And not just for breeders.
8. Finally, proof that not all genetic-resource hunting needs a genebank: Brussels brewers are getting people to comb the city for wild yeast, because the raw materials for a proper lambic turns is hanging around in urban trees.
Published on September 10, 2026