- There’s a world of coloured sheep out there, and a conference.
- Not to mention camels.
- Does this cute sheep qualify as coloured?
- You can’t copyright a cheese in Europe. Worth a Brexit joke? No.
- Like board games? You’ll LOVE this.
- Speaking of games, the only thing qat is good for is to use up your Q in Scrabble. Which is why you won’t find it in the new CATAN, despite the tempting near-homophony.
- Learn about the SDG 2.5 indicators from FAO.
- Oh, and since you’re there, take a gander at their new biodiversity website.
- Climate change affecting potato production in New Zealand.
- I think I may have overlooked this CTA Dossier on underutilized crops and nutrition, which is naughty of me.
- Coaxing “cafe marron” to have sex with itself.
Nibbles: Australian wheat, Heirloom apple, Olive trouble, The Queen’s Mulberries, Watermelon breeding, Phancy phenotyping, Chefs & NUS, Cacao origins
- An encomium for CIMMYT Down Under.
- A paean for the Albemarle pippin. That’s an apple.
- A threnody for the Italian olive.
- An honour for British mulberries.
- A tribute to USDA watermelon genomics.
- An auto-panegyric from BASF. Yeah, I know auto is Latin, sue me.
- A celebration of millet-loving chefs.
- A reflection on the origin of that cacao origin paper, by the author.
Nibbles: CBD, NPGS, Greek celery, Rodomiro Ortiz interview, Amazonian fruits, In vitro, Maize archaeology, Asian seed companies, Victorian root
- Courtesy of Bioversity, useful summary of agricultural biodiversity events at the CBD COP, starting in a few days.
- The USDA National Plant Germplasm System, justified.
- The ancient symbolism of celery. Spoiler alert: death.
- A breeding professor calls for a major change in breeding. Spoiler alert: productivity is not enough.
- What’s the next açaí? And will it save the Amazon?
- Saving threatened species. Spoiler alert: seeds are not enough.
- 9000 years of maize history, decoded.
- The Access to Seeds Index 2019 report for South and Southeast Asia is out. Spoiler alert: I feel a guest post coming on.
- UK supermarket to stock salsify.
NIbbles: Banana collecting, Perennial staples, Gender myths, Biodiversity on farm, Farmers’ seeds
- Collecting bananas in Bougainville.
- More about breeding perennial versions of staple crops.
- Surveys and statistics are not enough to better understand respective roles of women and men in food production and security.
- There are diverse farms in California too.
- GRAIN paper says farmers’ seed systems feed Africa. But surely all those community seed banks could do with support and back-up, not to mention new, additional diversity, from formal sector genebanks?
Nibbles: ITPGRFA, CIMMYT, VIR, Livestock & CC, Vesuvius, Apple pie, Biobanking
- The Plant Treaty tries to enhance itself: the story so far.
- CIMMYT gets a podcast. Here’s one on blue maize.
- The Vavilov collection put to good use. Again.
- “Cow farts cause more climate change than cars.” Not really. Here comes the science, by way of a Twitter thread, of all things.
- The Pompeii eruption: August, or October? Here comes the archaeobotany, among other things, by way of a Twitter thread, of all things.
- It was World Apple Day or somesuch, so here’s two canonical feel-good heirloom apple stories.
- Fancy an open-access special issue of Biopreservation and Biobanking? Too nerdy? It’s on agricultural genebanks… Yeah, I thought you might.