Nibbles – Page 479 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

July 28, 2007July 28, 2007

Basmati rice benefits

The benefits of traditional basmati rice.

Horse diversity

The wonders of livestock breeding.

July 27, 2007July 27, 2007

“Sex tree” threatened

Ugandans are overexploiting “a natural Viagra”, Citropsis articulata.

Scent of a strawberry

Wild strawberries smell good. Ingmar Bergman unavailable for comment.

US-Africa cooperation on cowpea breeding

African students breeding Striga-resistant cowpeaÂ at US uni.

1. Sir Nathaniel Bacon’s painting records the arrival of American crops in early modern England. And the cookmaid gets equal billing.
2. North America’s bison survived near-extinction, but how much of its genetic diversity is left? Past and present DNA is helping reconstruct what was lost, with implications for how what remains is conserved and managed.
3. China’s wild rice collection in Hainan now holds more than 15,000 samples. A genetic treasure trove, but its value ultimately depends on what breeders can make of it. Much like what’s left of bison diversity.
4. Mycorrhizal fungi form vast underground networks that support plant life and store carbon. A new global map begins to show their extent, and just how much of this biodiversity remains overlooked.
5. Africa’s herbaria hold centuries of botanical history, much of it still effectively invisible. Specimens can reveal shifting plant distributions and overlooked species. First, though, someone has to do the painstaking work of getting the data online.
6. Africa has done painstaking work on seed laws, but getting good seed to farmers remains hard in practice. The gap between policy and delivery is stark, and commercial companies need to work alongside farmer-managed seed systems, not pretend they don’t exist.
Published on October 14, 2026