- The colonial history of the jackfruit in Sri Lanka.
- “…some of the best cider you can drink is as funky and wild as a 1970s Berlin bathhouse.” Ok, you twisted my arm.
- The world in a Philadelphia watermelon stand.
- Bee Wilson’s review of wheat book Amber Waves by Catherine Zabinski.
- The Canadian genebank at 50.
- Oh shoot I missed National Pawpaw Day.
- Podcast on carrot breeding using crop wild relatives.
Nibbles: Vavilov podcast, Pomological book, Wine press, Banana data
- Audio drama on Vavilov. You heard me.
- Proceedings from the First Annual Wild & Seedling Pomological Exhibition. First of many, I hope.
- A really old Phoenician wine press.
- Update on banana genebank data.
Nibbles: Cahokia book, Grape stats, Tides of History, Medieval Arabic cookbooks, Bangladesh hydroponics
- Prof. Gayle J. Fritz gets 2020 Mary W. Klinger Book Award for “Feeding Cahokia.” Beyond maize and priests.
- The ups and downs of grape varieties. Airén relinquishes the top spot! So much data: who will calculate diversity stats?
- Nice, long podcast on the beginning of farming in the Fertile Crescent. More coming up.
- “Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table” is the sort of cookbook we all need.
- What is it about floating gardens? Quite a lot, really. But they are not easily transplanted, as it were.
Nibbles: Horse cloning, Fish genes, Breeding manuals, Capsicum podcast
- Boffins clone Przewalski’s horse.
- Boffins start fish genebank. Cloning next?
- Boffins deconstruct the breeders’ equation. Apply to fish next?
- Boffin (and Jeremy) discusses how the chilli pepper got to China. Goes well with fish. The pepper, not the podcast.
Nibbles: African veggies, Commodities, Grasslands, Spices, TZ coconuts, Jordan genebank, Mosquito domestication, Jamon, GRIN-Global, Cultivariable
- All-Africa Summit on Diversifying Food Systems with African Traditional Vegetables to Increase Health, Nutrition and Wealth. New dates! 25-28 January 2021.
- “How do you like Cocoa and Coffee? Saving crops, protecting culture, sustaining livelihoods.” Online event, 8 September. Register here.
- How the US prairies got wheat, a soil classification, tree shelter belts and weeds from the Russian steppes, thanks to Mennonite farmers and emigre Jewish scientists. Entertaining podcast on what sounds like a fascinating book. Oh and there’s a video too. Nice Vavilov anecdote.
- History of Spices 101.
- Quick summary of coconut research and development in Tanzania.
- A genebank gets off the ground in Jordan.
- How the mosquito Aedes aegypti got domesticated. Yeah, domesticated.
- Texas and Georgia move into jamón ibérico: acorns off the menu, “pecans, peanuts and sunflower” on. Hilarity ensues.
- The USDA National Plant Germplasm System gets a new database. Go crazy.
- Meanwhile, Cultivariable publishes his latest evaluation data on the USDA potato germplasm (see “Evaluation Year”). Will it find its way into the above-mentioned database?