- Guardian has whole piece on the importance on Kew’s collections without once mentioning Millennium Seed Bank. Anyway, the Paris herbarium is not so bad either, though they are no match for the Kew press machine.
- Hybridization is good for plant diversity. Well, yeah. What am I missing here? Oh and here’s more about things that maintain variation, and more still. You see what I did there?
- Allanblackia is the next big thing in agroforestry. Which probably means its name will soon be changed.
- Conclave meets to discuss
election of next Popepulse productivity. - Videos from Africa GIS week.
- Meeting to review 10 years of research on chronic poverty. Must have been deeply depressing.
- Helping rice to keep its cool. A crop wild relatives story.
- “The Ministry of Science and Technology should emphasize the need to undertake research programmes on unexplored and underutilized crops as these could constitute the genetic base for genes for improved nutritional quality of foods.” In India, that is.
- “We need to mine that diversity to provide genetic material in an adapted background more readily to be used by plant breeders.” From CIMMYT. How many times have I heard that? Here’s my problem: who will do it?
- That IRIN feature from a few days ago recycled with a new pic. Which is of a genebank not included in the list in the text. The person shown is my friend Dr Jean Hanson, recently retired head of the ILRI genebank.
- DIY perennial cereals.
- “Biodiversity scientists and agricultural scientists have tended to approach their interests in very different ways. I think there’s a lot we can learn from each other.” Wait, what?
- Another best biodiversity blogs list. Ahem.
- A “very clear action plan” for a ‘Green Revolution’ in Africa emerges from AGRA meeting. You will however look in vain for the details on the scidev.net piece.
- The last Inka treasure. Yep, the potato.
- Boffins find anti-Striga gene. No, not really, settle down.
- Rachel Laudan is really rude about Mexican potatoes.
- Cur moriatur homo cui salvia crescit in horto? Good question.
- Finding the 100-Horse Chestnut.
- Getting to grips with photoperiod sensitivity in maize.
Sudan gets a helping hand from Oxfam.
“I am hoping that with the diversification of food sources, we can cope with the drought without being hungry.”
Oxfam is dispensing seeds and advice in the Sudan. I wonder what varieties of sorghum and other seeds they gave those farmers?
Nibbles: Nagoya, Popghum, Pavlovsk, Water, Climate change, Plumpy’Nut, Buckwheat
- The essential guide to the 10th Conference of the Parties to the convention on Biological Diversity. Unmissable.
- Popghum? What genius came up with that name? And now that it’s big in Virginia, can Africa and Latin America be far behind?
- Jeremy Bentham excoriates the Russian Federation on Pavlovsk. And gets it mostly right. Yes, that Jeremy Bentham.
- Apparently water diversity is also a good thing for food security.
- Climate change! Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Huh!
- “Plumpy’Nut is not a miracle cure for global hunger or for global malnutrition.” Say it isn’t so!
- Never mind wheat, here’s the great buckwheat panic of 2010, kasha chaos.
Nibbles: School food, India, Orchids, Biocontrol, Breastfeeding, Conch, Africa
- Host a volunteer school food gardener (in the US).
- M.S. Swaminathan’s menu for food security in India. Burp.
- Purmina Menon’s menu for food security in India takes us beyond food. Pardon me.
- Anyone for edible orchids? Anissa Helou on salep.
- Wasp flies in hot pursuit of cassava mealybugs.
- Melinda ♡ breastfeeding. The basis for sound nutrition.
- Humped conch got bigger as a result of human activities — despite being hunted. Complex.
- “Africa to become world’s breadbasket.” Makes a change from being the world’s basketcase.
Nibbles: Sustainability, Market gardens, Tomato history, Millennium Seed Bank
- What’s behind “the environmentalist’s paradox“?
- Growing vegetables in the Sahel. What could possibly go wrong?
- And for the EurekAlert trifecta: the history of the pomodoro in Italy.
- Kew Magazine looks at seeds, big time.