Podcasts

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?

Dr Sandy Knapp on botanical monographs. Solanum, of course.
Dr Joukje Buiteveld on fruit field genebanks in the Netherlands.
NordGen adopts GRIN-Global.
Hybrid pigeonpa in the Indian news.
All the tea in India. And Ireland?
The rise of craft chocolate.
And here’s the beverage trifecta: coffee in Ethiopia.
Seed collecting in Brazil for reforestation.
NBPGR does medicinals.
You wanna be a “germplasm acquisition coordinator“? I bet you do. But watch out…
Podcast on cattle domestication. Dr Hans Lenstra from Utrecht University in the hot seat.

Growing coffee at 2400m could be the new normal.
A history of coffee rust, thanks to Prof. Stuart McCook and WCR. Not much of a problem at 2400m.
Oh and here’s a podcast on the history of coffee, an interview with the author of Coffeeland: “drinking coffee is a symptom of working for other people.” Lot of that lately: In Our Time, Eat This Podcast.
Breeding grapes the smart way. That just seems to mean have access to a germplasm collection and choose your parents carefully.
Which is what Borlaug did. Ok, plus he was lucky.
Hunan gets a genebank. Prosperity ensues.
Could there have been a Green Revolution in Westeros? With that genetics?

The Stairway to Heaven of barley breeding for whiskey involves thinking about taste a bit more.
Taste comes into maize breeding too.
Jeremy talks taste with Margot Finn. Oh and there’s his latest newsletter.
Farmerama podcasts on cereals in small-scale farming in the UK and beyond.
Nothing small-scale about ancient farming in the Nile Valley.
Make ancient Roman bread during lockdown. Then compare and contrast with the Egyptian kind?
What did the Romans ever do for the rural economy of Britain anyway?
Course on communicating the value of biodiversity. Wasn’t all the above enough?