Podcasts

October 23, 2018October 23, 2018

Free the podcast

I’m sure it’s pure coincidence, but hot on the heels of CIMMYT launching a new podcast, here comes the Open Source Seed Initiative with Free the Seed! Good to see the mainstream trying to catch up with Jeremy.

And this seems as good a time and place as any to celebrate the 20th birthday of the greatest podcast of them all, In Our Time. My work will only truly be done when Lord Bragg asks some pointy-headed boffin to “please develop that a bit” of some arcane recess of agricultural biodiversity.

October 22, 2018October 22, 2018

Nibbles: ITPGRFA, CIMMYT, VIR, Livestock & CC, Vesuvius, Apple pie, Biobanking

The Plant Treaty tries to enhance itself: the story so far.
CIMMYT gets a podcast. Here’s one on blue maize.
The Vavilov collection put to good use. Again.
“Cow farts cause more climate change than cars.” Not really. Here comes the science, by way of a Twitter thread, of all things.
The Pompeii eruption: August, or October? Here comes the archaeobotany, among other things, by way of a Twitter thread, of all things.
It was World Apple Day or somesuch, so here’s two canonical feel-good heirloom apple stories.
Fancy an open-access special issue of Biopreservation and Biobanking? Too nerdy? It’s on agricultural genebanks… Yeah, I thought you might.

October 13, 2018October 14, 2018

Explaining crops

It looks like the European Seed Association have enlisted Prof. Jonathan Silvertown to do a whole series of videos on the evolution of crops. Pretty good idea.

Compare and contrast Prof. Silvertown’s soliloquy on bread wheat with Jeremy’s recent take on that crop on Eat This Podcast’s month-long tour de force, Our Daily Bread.

August 3, 2018

Our daily podcast

Over at Eat This Podcast, Jeremy has just kicked off a month of daily podcasting about wheat and bread. You have only a couple to catch up on, which is easy to do as each episode is only about 5 minutes long. We’ve had Jack Harlan harvesting wild wheat in the Kara Dag and Neanderthals eating porridge so far. I think we’ve got the polyploidy story today. Hang on to your genomes, it’s going to be quite a ride.

March 10, 2018March 9, 2018

Nibbles: Gros Michel, Poultry photos, Pigeonpea prebreeding, Murnong, Wheat breeding, Hass, Indian forest foods, Popcorn domestication, Mustard history, Historical botanists, Barges & Bread, Samoan distilling, Kenyan brewing

The quest for Big Mike. No, not Stormy Daniels’ latest. It’s a banana.
Ok, I’m going to resist the temptation of making the obvious follow-up joke in connection with this gallery of beautiful chickens.
Who needs chickens when you have pigeons. Ah, no, these are pigeonpeas.
Australia’s answer to the potato. Unclear what the question was.
Australia’s answer to frost-sensitive wheat: look in genebanks for resistant stuff.
The mother of all avocados. Kind of a Hass-been, though.
Avocado shmavocado, says India.
Are you not entertained? Have some popcorn!
And mustard for that hotdog. You know, like Mesolithic people did.
History of plant collecting double feature: Bradby Blake & Frank N. Meyer.
Listen to Jeremy on how grain made its way up the Thames.
A lot of grain also makes its way to Ft Collins. See what I did there?
Taro whiskey: I’ll drink to that.
Kenyan coffee to finish things off? Maybe not for long.