- Pastoral mobiity “a trump card to be strengthened”.
- Latest Berry go Round is up, although I can’t actually read it myself.
- Wild horses in the US southwest.
- Cassava notes: GMO cassava lower in cyanogens, higher in protein.
- Climate change threatens Ugandan tea. Luigi’s MIL secretly pleased.
- How to guarantee a food-insecure future in Kenya.
Nibbles: Heat, Watermelons, Rye, Apples, Solanum melongena, Pinus edulis, Food systems, Indian rice, Glycene
- Heat takes growing toll on Kansas farm crops. Heat, not drought. Just sayin’.
- Amateur Hour I: watermelons.
- Amateur Hour II: perennial rye.
- Amateur Hour III: red-fleshed apples.
- Bronjenas. An eggplant by any other name is still an aubergine (Solanum melongena).
- Not your average pinoli.
- We need to fix the food system. But how? Answers on a postcard, please.
- Saving traditional rice landraces in India. Of which there are maybe 3,000 in the NE alone. No mention of genebanks.
- Superstar Swedish soybeans
Nibbles: AnGR, Sustainable diets, MDG, Plantwise, Maize in Africa, Lead farmers, Micro-livestock (again), Cows and climate change
- Money for AnGR conservation up for grabs.
- 8th International Food Data Conference: Biodiversity and Sustainable Diets is taking place September 14-17, 2011 at NBI Conference Centre, Norwich, UK.
- So how are we doing with that MDG1?
- More on CABI’s Plantwise. I just hope most of it will be free. They have a blog, natch.
- CIMMYT drought-tolerant maize varieties featured in blog post. I’ll alert the media. No, wait. Seems like only 60% of farmers in Kenya are willing to pay for these varieties anyway.
- No extension workers? No problem.
- A tasty dish of Ugandan grasshoppers. Always a good subject for a subtly xenophobic CNN phtoto feature.
- Cows not so bad after all?
Nibbles: Beetles, Assisted migration, Potato breeding, Chaffey, Malnutrition
- Beetles good for weeds. No news on effect of Rolling Stones on pests.
- When to move species. Acacias, for example?
- A gene to prevent inbreeding depression in potato. I’m kinda down myself today.
- As you were, Plant Cuttings has made me feel a whole lot better.
- Documenting Peru’s success in fighting malnutrition. Did fortification play a role? Hard to say from this, which focuses on policy, and in particular conditional cash transfers.
Brainfood: Chinese landscapes, Agroforestry seed, Italian lentils, Carrot heterosis, Taro in islands, Indian wheat, AnGR ex situ, Woodland shrines, Vitamin A, Caraway, Adansonia, Neotropical blueberries, Yeast genetics, Rotations
- Agricultural landscapes and biodiversity in China. Traditional farming practices good for biodiversity, modern bad. Therefore need intensification, to take pressure off natural habitats. But no, wait, that usually means monocultures and chemicals, which are bad. Oh crap. No mention of genebanks.
- Innovation in input supply systems in smallholder agroforestry: seed sources, supply chains and support systems. Decentralized commercial system probably best for getting quality agroforestry seed to smallholders. Unfortunately, nobody listening.
- Characterization of Italian lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) germplasm by agronomic traits, biochemical and molecular markers. I object in principle to any paper that says a particular landrace is “the best.”
- The relationship between heterosis and genetic distances based on RAPD and AFLP markers in carrot. It is positive. Was this really not known before in carrots? What am I missing?
- Genetic diversity of taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) in Vanuatu (Oceania): an appraisal of the distribution of allelic diversity (DAD) with SSR markers. 10 villages, 344 landraces, 324 distinct multilocus genotypes, genetic pattern reflects social networks. Situation in Andaman Islands not quite so interesting.
- A study of genetic diversity among Indian bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars released during last 100 years. More diversity after Green Revolution than before, but steadily decreasing.
- Ex situ conservation genetics: a review of molecular studies on the genetic consequences of captive breeding programmes for endangered animal species. Restricted access, and you know what? I couldn’t care less.
- Consequences of wooded shrine rituals on vegetation conservation in West Africa: a case study from the Bwaba cultural area (West Burkina Faso). I expect there are some, but with restricted access, what’s the point of even linking?
- Evaluating sweet potato as an intervention food to prevent Vitamin A deficiency. To have an effect, you’d have to replace all the other types with orange-fleshed ones. Well, almost. Wonder whether it will be presented at the “International Scientific Symposium on Food & Nutrition Security Information: From valid measurement to effective decision-making” early next year.
- Evaluation of variability of morphological traits of selected caraway (Carum carvi L.) genotypes. They’re actually breeding this stuff in Poland. But they had to get their germplasm from botanical gardens around Europe.
- Variation in baobab seedling morphology and its implications for selecting superior planting material. There is some.
- Edible Neotropical blueberries: antioxidant and compositional fingerprint analysis. The 5 species involved have different ones.
- Population genomics and speciation in yeasts. There’s a question as to whether yeast species in fact exist in any meaningful sense.
- Cereal–forage rotations effect on biochemical characteristics of topsoil and productivity of the crops in Mediterranean environment. Continuous cereal stressed the soil.