Nibbles – Page 456 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

October 17, 2007October 17, 2007

A film about Michael Hamburger, poet and apple grower

Worth seeing; a poet and his pomes, on film.

October 16, 2007

Eat local

Interactive map of local foods in US.

October 16, 2007

Berry wonderful

Sea buckthorn: from the Mongolian steppe to Canada. Genghis Khan unavailable for comment.

October 15, 2007

Nitrogen has negative effect on species diversity

N from agriculture depleting grassland diversity.

October 15, 2007November 1, 2007

Pocket pigs

Devon farm breeds mini-pig. Dr Evil unavailable for comment. Agrobiodiversity surrenders.

- 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