Nibbles – Page 461 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

October 2, 2007

Alfred H. Peet dies

The “grandfather of specialty coffee” goes to the big caffÃ¨ in the sky.

October 2, 2007

Italian fruit on show

Blast, I missed the Mostra Pomologica!

October 2, 2007April 14, 2011

Opening the cerrado

Embrapa gets NYTimes write-up. Its genebanks unavailable for comment.

October 1, 2007

Poppy dearest

More on the Afghan opium poppyÂ legalization debate.

October 1, 2007October 1, 2007

Newsletter on organic seeds and plant breeding

Latest issue of the ECO-PB newsletter is available.

- 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