Nibbles

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?

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.

Bananas resistant to bacterial wilt found at last.
The Ethiopian genebank gets the very cool Atlas Obscura treatment.
It needs a helping hand, though. Technology to the rescue in wheat rust management.
Diversify your diet, why don’t you.
Giving standing trees value in the Amazon. Great drone shots too.
Carob trees have value in Cyprus.
Also nice pix in this Guardian photo essay on how farmers fight climate change.
Genotyping the CIP collection. That includes the humble potato, of course.

Q&A with Susan Bragdon of Seeds for All on the importance of agrobiodiversity and small farmers.
Going wild for finger millet in Kenya.
There’s maybe a previously unknown variety of cacao.
Brazilian germplasm collection data online.
A very Fertile Crescentic view of agricultural origins.
Antidote to above.
Ft Collins USDA genebank in the (local) news.

The ever-dependable Roads & Kingdoms on a very special Swiss cheese.
The ever-dependable Mongabay on Kyrgyz apple forests.
The ever-dependable Simran Sethi on how the California pistachio industry got it’s start.
The ever-dependable Bioversity with a global strategy for the conservation of coconut genetic diversity.
The ever-dependable Twitter…no wait. Thread on why farmers with a bigger share in their output produce more.
A cow wild relative in Myanmar.
Carolina Sansaloni of CIMMYT on genotyping genebank collections.
Are chickens “rescuing mute, passive non-Western women”?
Blueberries are in all kinds of trouble.