- “Its flavor is like the saliva generously exchanged by lovers in kissing.” Yum!
- ECOWAS Nutrition Forum continues to sell “multi-sectoral approach to tackling under-nutrition” in West Africa.
- Six new varieties of wheat in Oman! Splitters rule.
- US scientists urged Russians to save Pavlovsk. Lotta continua.
- And here’s the Russian Housing Development Foundation’s take on the expert report. Lotta continua sempre.
- COPs may come and COPs may go — but will we be ready for the Peasant Olympics in 2012? h/t Miss Hathorn.
- Phosphates in China: waste ’em while you can?
- Book: Conservation agriculture and sustainable crop intensification in Lesotho.
- Australian almond variety not performing this year.
Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Baobab hybridization, Jackfruit, Vavilovia, Cowpea education, Lead, Bees, Banana wilt, Dariy cows, Pavlovsk, Drylands, School gardens, Genetic diversity in botanic gardens
- The value of Pavlovsk. Jeremy delivers a slap.
- CIRAD on kinky sex among the baobabs.
- “I had never heard that there were distinct varieties of the jackfruit, although of course such a thing was reasonable, so I naturally wanted very much to taste one.” Naturally.
- Wild relative of pea gets a weird hybrid in-ex situ conservation treatment.
- A Cowpea Story, an illustrative children’s book by Vicky Inniss-Palmer, tells the hopeful story of a cowpea named Catalina and her struggle to overcome illness and disease with the help of scientists. Meanwhile, scientists meet.
- Urban gardeners, beware lead. And nurture your pollinators.
- Reading this, anyone would think nobody had ever researched banana Xanthomonas wilt.
- Improved dairying in Kenya.
- Vavilov Institute’s comprehensive update on Pavlovsk.
- ICRISAT to put in place new market-oriented strategy which will use a “systems perspective in setting our priorities to ensure that all important issues along the dryland agriculture value chain are addressed.”
- Meanwhile, ASARECA asks for ideas on how to intensify one of those dryland systems in the face of climate change.
- ICIMOD promotes herbal gardens in schools.
- Botanic gardens get wrists slapped over their inattention to genetics.
Viva the agrobiodiversity revolution
A final dispatch from the front lines of agrobiodiversity conservation and use. That is, the 6th Henry A. Wallace/CATIE Inter-American Scientific Conference on “Agrobiodiversity in Mesoamerica — From Genes to Landscapes” at CATIE in Costa Rica.
The participants at the last day of the 6th Wallace Symposium shared a warm glow. The people who I chanced to talk to all raved about the conference. Although agrobiodiversity suffers from being a vague term, it has the attractive ability to bring together a crowd of scientists from worldwide institutes, who obviously see great relevance in each other’s research. Everyone can appreciate the needs of farmers for a suite of integrated and sustainable options, including biodiversity at all scales, to enable them to cope with markets, pests and diseases, soils, climate, and — maybe most importantly — changes.
CATIE is in a prime position to integrate options with its stronghold in forest and agroecology research, watershed management, enterprise development and its international collections of cacao, coffee, peach palm and many other crops. Dr Ronnie De Camino, CATIE’s Deputy Director, stressed to the audience that the drivers of change are not slowing down and our actions are too slow. What is needed is a revolution. After this conference, I will certainly be looking to CATIE and the Mesoamerican region to lead the way in this agrobiodiversity revolution.
Nibbles: Heat, Pastoralism, Yams, Caimito, Pavlovsk, Beans, Tomatoes, Trees, Grasslands, Rice in LAC, Fossil sunflower, Apples, Fish in Africa
- Unpacking the heat of chillies.
- Debating pastoralism, a new journal.
- Celebrating (instead of growing?) yams.
- Economic Botany releases free download of paper on caimito domestication.
- More than 50,000 people care about Pavlovsk Experiment Station. Unstoppable?
- A bean diversity fair was held in Uganda on the 21st of June 2010. Did we miss it then?
- Searching for the Blue Zebra … tomato. Wonder if AVRDC know about it.
- Those blogging diplomats — How to make a scarf from a tree.
- Tibet’s disappearing grasslands. Pastoralists see item 2 above.
- IRRI DG says, in Latin America, that Latin America could be next global rice bowl. Well, he would, wouldn’t he. Very data-heavy presentation.
- One VERY remote sunflower wild relative. Very cool.
- Chaffey’s regular words of wisdom on anything botanical. Well, mostly wise. But more on that later…
- The history of the apple in the early US.
- IUCN does for African freshwater fish what it does best. Ring the alarm bell.
Nibbles: Permaculture, Bird flu, Malnutrition, Roots & tubers in E Africa, Sweet potato
- Perennial fodder crops to the rescue.
- Cool bird flu maps. GIS to the rescue.
- Persistent malnutrition? We know how to fix it. That’s the tragedy. Meanwhile, let’s consult the e-atlas.
- Cassava and potato to the rescue.
- Orange+purple sweet potatoes to the rescue.