Nibbles

June 21, 2007

Marine genetic resources

Aside from the really lame joke — and she really should know better — Kathryn Garforth Mitchell has a good post on a marine genetic resources meeting.

June 21, 2007

Herbal Viagra?

All you ever wanted to know about maca (Lepidium meyenii)?

June 21, 2007June 21, 2007

Another microlivestock resource

More on microlivestock, from what looks a fascinating site.

June 21, 2007

Chicken maps

Global chicken density maps, courtesy of ILRI, my hosts for this week.

June 21, 2007June 21, 2007

What colour is your pollen?

What colour is your pollen? Mustard Plaster tells all.

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