That’s according to Bill Gates, on his visit to The Bread Lab. May come as a surprise to CIMMYT and ICARDA, and to their partners at TraitGenetics. Or to the bunch of Italian farmers Jeremy interviewed for the latest Eat This Podcast. Or to everyone at the Land Institute and elsewhere working on perennial wheat. Maybe Mr Gates meant at his Foundation.
Crop wild relatives on Costing the Earth on the BBC
Botanist James Wong investigates the links between global warming and the rate at which crops are able to adapt and evolve to rapidly changing conditions.
That includes how crop wild relatives can help.
The money quote:
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is you don’t throw away any of the parts just because you’re not sure what they’re for.
Nibbles: Rice in Trinidad, Sweet potatoes in Ethiopia, EU crop diversity double, Sir Peter on the ginkgo, Forages, Brazilian peanuts, Seed moisture, Phenotyping double, Svalbard deposit, CATIE data, Herbarium double, Seed #resistance, Father of the apple, Agave congress
- African rice out of Africa, and out of the genebank.
- The other way around for sweet potato.
- Markers for micronutrients. And diversity for taste…
- The deep history of the ginkgo.
- Study plants to decrease the effects of burping.
- Brazil rationalizes peanut collections.
- Measuring moisture in seeds.
- Big data for better seeds. And not only in Iowa.
- NZ seeds in Svalbard.
- CATIE on Genesys.
- Oz biosecurity fail. Better stick to online.
- I want to be a seed rebel too.
- Maybe in Kazakhstan?
- Agave under the volcano under the cosh.
Citrus in a nutshell
Look, I suppose I could try and explain that recent Citrus phylogeny paper in Annals of Botany. But am I really likely to do better than this graphic?
I didn’t think so.
Important to know what’s what. But if all that’s just too much for you, wind down by listening to Helena Attlee on Eat this Podcast on citrus in Italy.
Nibbles: Treaty & UPOV, Minor millets redux, Maize replacement, Amaranth et al., Squash story squashed, Potato podcast, Food security webinar, Plants Day, Repast magazine, German beer, Coffee strategy, ILRI genebank
- The ITPGRFA and UPOV need to sort out their connection.
- Bring back our millets.
- And our sorghum and pigeonpeas too.
- And the milpa.
- And speaking of milpa crops, the real story of that large, old squash.
- Since we’re at it, bring back the potato too. To the people.
- Yet another interesting webinar which I missed. Wonder whether they talked about the above. Anyone?
- Still have time to prepare for “Fascination of Plants Day” on 18 May 2017, though.
- Repast: “the First-Ever Food History Magazine”. ‘Nuff said.
- Gotta love those German purity laws.
- A strategy for conserving coffee genetic resources takes shape. Now for the money…
- New forages genebank opens at ILRI in Ethiopia.