- Big chocolate to get bigger. What will it do to diversity?
- Gates Foundation funds perennial grains for Africa.
- Including sorghum, the perennial version of which may or may not include the latest magic bullet gene.
- Not including potato, though, which is also, however, being pushed in Africa.
- Great old maps of agricultural origins.
- And on the same subject, I can never resist etymology maps, especially of agrobiodiversity words.
Nibbles: Crop rotation, Nutrition, Rice podcast, Climate change meet, Sustainable diets seminar
- “Always rotating, regardless of prices, is close to optimal.” Not what you think. Or maybe it is. Robust economic reasons for not planting the same annual crop two years running.
- Got any data about nutrition and biodiversity? FAO wants them.
- Fuller and McCouch on the origins of rice. Audio goodness only.
- The first of many video updates on #COP19. Gonna be a long couple of weeks.
- And no, I don’t think a UN Nutrition and Sustainability Seminar will help much in that respect, but you can follow that too at #sustfoodsystems. Or is it #sustdiets?
Brainfood: Mixtures and productivity, Pesticides and soil biota, Andean intensification, Turkish barley, Tomato size gene, Quinoa and environment, Banana improvement, Hybrid conservation, Allozymes
- Changes in the Abundance of Grassland Species in Monocultures versus Mixtures and Their Relation to Biodiversity Effects. Monocultures are ok for productivity, but only initially.
- Agricultural soils, pesticides and microbial diversity. mRNA and high-throughput sequencing show that pesticides affect nitrification rates and soil microbe community structure. Brave new world indeed.
- Making Sense of Agrobiodiversity, Diet, and Intensification of Smallholder Family Farming in the Highland Andes of Ecuador. Want sustainable intensification? Look at the smaller enterprises.
- Genetic variation of barley germplasm from Turkey assessed by chloroplast microsatellite markers. Little genetic similarity between wild relative and landraces in same geographic area.
- A cytochrome P450 regulates a domestication trait in cultivated tomato. Single polymorphism controls fruit size.
- Blossoming Treasures of Biodiversiy. 42. Quinoa – is the United Nations’ featured crop of 2013 bad for biodiversity? It can be.
- From crossbreeding to biotechnology-facilitated improvement of banana and plantain. Quite some progress, despite few breeding programmes. Will it all go GE? Big temptation. I would have made more of the genebank collections, personally.
- Perspectives on the conservation of wild hybrids. There’s more to it than science. Tell that to the banana breeders.
- Revisiting protein heterozygosity in plants — nucleotide diversity in allozyme coding genes of conifer Pinus sylvestris. Those pre-DNA days weren’t a complete waste of time. That mean we can measure genetic erosion?
Nibbles: Panama disease, N2Africa, Trees and CC, CITES, Jordanian farmers and CC, ETC poster, Digitization, Wallace video, International Rice Genetics Symposium, Roots and tubers meet, Hybrid maize, Quinoa, Food Security, Israeli boars
- Panama comes to SE Asia. Banana people will understand. And will know what to do?
- Shucks, just missed the N2Africa project first phase results presentation shindig in Nairobi. All about the power and beauty of nitrogen-fixing legumes (geddit?). Jeremy wont let me link to the piece about the project that recently appeared on a well-known site, and he’s right, it’s largely content free. And you can find it if you really want to anyway.
- Climate change? Not a problem, for some plants (including wild relatives?), if there’s trees around. Well, kinda sorta. But it made you look, didn’t it? Are any of them on CITES? Consult the new handy dandy online thingy.
- Ah, but tell that to Abu Waleed and other Jordanian farmers.
- Who are the answer to etc Group’s question: Who will feed us?
- A botanical use for online gaming. Whatever next.
- Celebrating Alfred Wallace via animated video. And why not.
- You want more videos? Here’s a nice explanation of the difference between winter and spring wheat.
- Huge rice genetics meet is apparently a “hot bed of discussion”. For another couple of days. Let us know if you are party to any of that.
- No doubt the same could have been said about the recent 12th International Symposium of the International Society for Tropical Root Crops in Accra.
- Zambian families are better off nutritionally if they grow hybrid maize.
- A handy English translation of an all-consuming post about quinoa in Spanish. And check the photo of quinoa diversity!
- Gary Nabhan explains why “more biodiversity means more food security“.
- Israel’s wild boars are European. I’m biting right through my tongue here.
Nibbles: Soil testing kit, Sustainable farming, Coffee and climate change, BGI genebank, Bamboo genebank, Genebank management, India’s malnutrition, Phenotyping conference, CIP genebank video, CG impact, Feed the World
Luigi went on a three-week trip, and all he came back with was this:
- A new soil testing kit? Really?
- Ok, how about a SciDev Spotlight featurette on sustainable farming? No? Well, can I tempt you with the British Ecological Society on agroecology then?
- Oh, I bet this thing on coffee and climate change will hit home.
- I’m pretty sure news of yet another Chinese genebank (of sorts) won’t.
- Pssst. Got room for a new bamboo genebank too?
- They’ll need a genebank management system, won’t they? GRIN and bear it.
- News too of hunger and malnutrition in India, by Indians, for … er …
- Phenotyping conference, anyone? Anyone at all? Some EU breeders will no doubt be there. And some of them at least will find a new map of water risk useful in their work.
- And to end with, Al Jazeera on the CIP potato genebank. You heard me.
- As you were, there’s the CGIAR Knowledge Day too, all about delivery and impact. I wonder if the genebanks will feature…
- Not so fast, there’s also a live webcast of the conference Feeding the World without Consuming the Planet that awaits you.