- Enjoying a mango, lychee or cashew? Thank the Eocene-Oligocene glaciation.
- A grand tasting of Korean kimchi, in New York next week. #wishiwerethere.
- The “Methuselah date” continues to thrive. How soon before we have a comparative sequence? (We missed an earlier report.)
- You know what else is thriving? The Crops For The Future Research Centre, that’s what.
- The home state of US winemaking? You’ll never guess.
- Fishing myths busted. No, not the one about giving someone a fish vs providing capacity building in a piscatorial framework. Carpe carpam!
- Kew builds a pyramid! Of pumpkins, settle down.
- A well-aged wine to go with those cucurbits? How about this 6000 year-old Greek number? I think you’ll be amused by its presumption.
- Nice enough story of cassava improvement from CIAT, except that it is missing the beginning (the genebank?) and the end (blindness prevented).
Nibbles: Access to Seeds, Bunch of meetings, CGIAR on the job, Smartt obit, Soybean mysteries, Apple grafting, FAO food security report
- “The Access to Seeds Index measures the performance of the leading companies in the seed industry independently, which will result in the publication of a ranking every two years.” Will need to keep an eye on this. As no doubt also will the CGIAR…
- …which met in Lisbon to discuss the Generation Challenge Programme and presented on NUS at Tropentag, having moved on from the Science Forum in Bonn, which had a lot on nutrition. No doubt some of them will be in Lillehammer to discuss plant genetic resources and climate change. How do they keep on top of it all?
- And when they are not meeting, they are surveying the use of Gnetum, sampling goats, and making videos about their genebanks among many other worthwhile things…
- Speaking of the IRRI genebank, Mike Jackson’s obituary of his friend Dr Joe Smartt, “geneticist and renowned grain legume expert,” is online at GRACE, but behind a paywall. Fortunately, you can get a condensed version on Mike’s blog.
- Legumes, I hear you say? “Two big mysteries in soybeans have captured my attention.” And I’m sure that sentence captured yours. Corn+Soybean Digest reveals all.
- Time for dessert. I see your 300-variety mango of Malihabad and I raise you a 250-variety apple of Chidham.
- But lest we forget why we’re doing all this meeting and goat-sampling and fruit-grafting, here comes FAO’s latest report on food insecurity.
Nibbles: Hunger, Food surplus, Bananas not killing crocs, Overpopulation matters, NUS 2013, Berry go Round, Call for articles, Wild cabbage
- How to solve world hunger, eat a new report.
- Or send them the UK’s surplus oats and wheat.
- Our friend Anne Vezina lets the reptiles of the press have it right between the eyes: Crocs and banana plantations: What the media missed.
- And Erik Hammar is peeved about a New York Times op-ed pooh poohing the problem of overpopulation.
- Glad we’re not too late to point you to the write-up of the 1st day of the NUS 2013 conference. More to come?
- There’s a new Berry go Round botany blog carnival up, with nothing of agricultural interest. I guess we missed the call for content. Again.
- Farming Matters wants your articles on agricultural biodiversity.
- In a cabbage taste test, wild is best.
Nibbles: Bees, Okra, Horsemeat, Monoculture, CWRs mapped, Barley, PB&J
- Colony collapse disorder. It’s still complicated.
- The Botanist in the Kitchen is at it again, with an in-depth treatment of okra, slime and chocolate.
- But seriously, why don’t Anglo-Saxons eat equids? It’s all down to religion.
- Nigeria embraces UNCTAD report that warns against monoculture.
- An interactive map of crop wild relatives. If it showed barley too, I know someone who would be in heaven.
- As so often in these matter, Kew comes to the rescue.
- A history of the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. My kind of dietary diversity.
Brainfood: Adaptation priorities, Sorghum genomics, Rice seed storage, Barley DNA, Nutrition breeding, Variety adoption, Croatian wine, Chinese eggplants, Finger millet breeding, Fruit & veg
- Global Climate Change Adaptation Priorities for Biodiversity and Food Security. Changes in crop suitability + changes in suitability for restricted-range birds = 10 priority areas.
- Whole-genome sequencing reveals untapped genetic potential in Africa’s indigenous cereal crop sorghum. Two domestication events. At least.
- Association analysis of seed longevity in rice under conventional and high-temperature germination conditions. 10 markers on 5 chromosomes explain 10% of the variation in seed longevity. Fascinating, but one wonders if the game is worth the candle.
- Analysis of DNA polymorphism in ancient barley herbarium material: Validation of the KASP SNP genotyping platform. It’s a brave new world we live in.
- DNA evidence for multiple introductions of barley into Europe following dispersed domestications in Western Asia. European Neolithic barley falls into 3 distinct groups which originated in different places in the Near East and entered Europe via different routes at different times. And they didn’t even look at herbarium material.
- Plant breeding for nutrition-sensitive agriculture: an appraisal of developments in plant breeding. Pick your target, bring in complementary expertise, and don’t rely on the commercial sector.
- Impact of Improved Seeds on Small Farmers Productivity, Income and Livelihood in Umruwaba Locality of North Kordofan, Sudan. Dismal scientists tell farmers to adopt improved peanuts based on bunch of clever maths. What could possibly go wrong?
- Classification of Croatian wine varieties using multivariate analysis of data obtained by high resolution ICP-MS analysis. 75 of them!
- Analysis of genetic diversity and structure of eggplant populations (Solanum melongena L.) in China using simple sequence repeat markers. 92 accessions, 7 geographic ares, 4 clades. As ever, “(t)he results will be useful for eggplant germplasm management and will lead to more efficient use of germplasm in eggplant breeding.” Riiiiiight.
- Heritability, variance components and genetic advance of some yield and yield related traits in Ethiopian collections of finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) genotypes. Some simple selection could improve yields.
- Feasibility of Using a Community-Supported Agriculture Program to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Inventories and Consumption in an Underresourced Urban Community. In smallish randomized controlled trial, 5 educational sessions and a box of fresh produce for 16 weeks results in more diverse foods in the house, and maybe even more fruit and veg consumption, compared to households which got nothing. Which is good, but the comparison doesn’t seem fair, somehow.