- Promoting food security and enhancing Nigeria’s small farmers’ income through value-added processing of lesser-known and under-utilized indigenous fruits and vegetables. It’s the infrastructure, stupid.
- The role of wild vegetables in household food security in South Africa: A review. No, it’s the information, stupid.
- Indigenous wild food plants in home gardens: improving health and income — with the assistance of agricultural extension. Nope, it’s the extension, stupid.
- Towards recommendations for metadata and data handling in plant phenotyping. It’s the standardization, stupid.
- Cytoplasmic diversity in potato breeding: case study from the International Potato Center. It’s a genetic bottleneck, stupid.
- Towards breeding of triploid chamomile (Matricaria recutita L.) — Ploidy variation within German chamomile of various origins. It’s the triploids, stupid.
- Making a chocolate chip: development and evaluation of a 6K SNP array for Theobroma cacao. Oh, very clever, now everybody and their uncle will be able to breed cacao, stupid.
- Arbuscular mycorrhiza differentially affects synthesis of essential oils in coriander and dill. It’s not just genetics, stupid.
- Comparative transcriptional profiling analysis of developing melon (Cucumis melo L.) fruit from climacteric and non-climacteric varieties. It’s the sugar metabolism, stupid.
- Climate-driven diversity loss in a grassland community. It’s the increasing aridity, stupid.
Nibbles: AVRDC genebank, Grits, Sikhs & parmesan, Congolese gouda, New rice, Poisonous plants, Bush tucker, Co-evolution, Amazonian medicinals, Native American usufruct
- World Vegetable Centre looking for a genebank manager.
- What’s a grit?
- Who did you say saved parmesan? Who did you say is making gouda?
- Philippines gets some new rice varieties. No, but these are climate-resilient.
- A poisonous plants gardens fits perfectly with my mood today.
- Involve native people in the development of a native foods industry. Well, duh.
- Blame butterflies for broccoli.
- There are a lot of medicinal plants in the Amazon.
- Wild rice (wild but not rice) vs pipeline.
Food composition data for policy makers
Biodiversity International are organizing a workshop on “Biodiversity for Improved Nutrition and Health: The critical role of food composition in decision making for agriculture and nutrition programming and policy” on 2 November 2015, just before the International Food Data Conference (IFDC) in Hyderabad. Sounds very worthy. Just a reminder that if you’re really into food composition, and haven’t done so already, you should probably think about subscribing to the InFoods-Food-Comp listserv, which is where I learned of this workshop.
Nibbles: Old basil, Old newsletters, New old vegetables, New network, New phylogenies, Old story
- World’s oldest basil pollen “may be ‘medicine’”.
- Bioversity digitises the past and contributes to the future: The rise of Africa’s super vegetables.
- New network for sustainable intensification.
- Amaze your friends with you up-to-date knoweldge of the current state of grass genomics.
- Biochar is once again “the next big thing”.
Brainfood: Eastern promise, Biodiversity databases, Pulse carotenoids, Castor oil breeding, Maya beans, NUS and water, Chinese Vitis
- An ethnobotanical perspective on traditional fermented plant foods and beverages in Eastern Europe. 116 taxa, with a preponderance of Rosaceae.
- Estimating species diversity and distribution in the era of Big Data: to what extent can we trust public databases? Trust, but verify.
- Genetic diversity of nutritionally important carotenoids in 94 pea and 121 chickpea accessions. There’s carotenoid diversity in the Canadian collections.
- Role of conventional and biotechnological approaches in genetic improvement of castor (Ricinus communis L.). We have the technology. What we don’t have is results.
- Phaseolus from Cerén—A Late Classic Maya Site. The wilds were also eaten.
- The Potential Role of Neglected and Underutilised Crop Species as Future Crops under Water Scarce Conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some neglected species may be somewhat adapted to low water conditions, perhaps.
- The wild relatives of grape in China: Diversity, conservation gaps and impact of climate change. 15 of 39 species need help, especially as the range of many is expected to be reduced by climate change.