- Book on history of plant breeding reviewed.
- Rust never sleeps.
- Ask not what next generation sequencing can do for you.
- Long-term datasets in biodiversity research. Nothing about genetic diversity though. Bummer.
- And genetic diversity is important, is it? Yep, it increases productivity, at least in Arabidopsis.
- No evidence of adaptive evolution in plants. What? Surely some mistake? I’m serious. And don’t call me Shirley.
- The latest from Worldwatch on African leafy veggies. Again, some links would have been nice.
- And Worldwatch also interviews Gary Nabhan on Vavilov.
- You can browse Tropicos specimens in Google Earth.
- Using pepper to protect stored rice.
- More evidence of the goodness of shade coffee.
- The diversity of Bosnian apples.
- Mammal plus bird species richness explains 72% of country-to-country variation in the number of human pathogens. Diversity begets diversity. But which way does the causality go?
- Phytophthora infestans in Estonia: “…higher proportion of metalaxyl resistant isolates from large conventional farms than from small conventional farms or from organic farms.” Metalaxyl is a fungicide.
Nibbles: Mangoes, Bees, Personalities, Business, Education, Meeting, Sorghum
- Mangofest in Miami. You missed it.
- Untreated seed saves bees? (Can someone please explain how this worked. If it worked.)
- Cary Fowler in the spotlight.
- IPCC envy? The Economist’s report on the Global Business of Biodiversity Symposium.
- “In seed time learn, in harvest time teach, in winter enjoy.”
- Ag experts descend on Ouagadougou for FARAweek. Hope springs eternal.
- Perennial sorghum?
Nibbles: Rhoades, Trigonella, Plant nutrition, Annals of Botany roundup, Vitamin A, Insect Week, yeast, Biocultural diversity online
- Remembering Robert Rhoades.
- Fenugreek 101.
- Plant nutrition experts on why plant nutrition is important for development.
- Nigel Chaffey rounds up botanical news. Best of its kind.
- Lois Englberger and others comment on that provocative vitamin A paper.
- Hey, did you know it was Insect Week?
- Olivia Judson on yeast.
- Welcome to Terralingua’s Portal on Biocultural Diversity Conservation!
Nibbles: Maize, Millets, Pollinators, Ungulates, Drugs, Orchids
- Long article on the politics (and more) of maize in Mexico.
- Yet more on the slow comeback of millets in (parts of) India.
- International Conference on Pollinator Biology, Health and Policy on July 24-28, 2010 at Penn State.
- Hunted ungulates are semi-domesticated.
- “…psychoactive plant toxins were a mundane occurrence in the environments of hominid evolution, and our ancestors may have been exploiting plant drugs for very long periods of time.”
- “I was confronted with centrefolds showing downy, smooth petals and moistened, hot-pink lips that pouted in the direction of tautly curved shafts and heavily veined pouches.”
Nibbles: Sugarcane breeding, Caterpillar mushroom, Saharan honeybees, Vodka taste, Cotton genetic resources, African savannah ag, Organic videos
- Fiji looking for better sugarcane. Not a moment too soon, with the EU subsidies going and all.
- Collecting the very valuable caterpillar mushroom in China’s protected areas. Illegal, but whachagonnado?
- The honeybees of the Saharan oases are isolated. Well, actually, not all of them, which I guess qualifies as a surprise.
- Can you tell different vodka brands apart? Here’s why. Maybe. Sounds a bit flaky to me.
- A global review of cotton genetic resources.
- Ploughing up the African savannah is gonna solve all our problems, apparently.
- Organic Seed Alliance launches a youtube channel. Oh goody, there’s how to breed organic carrots!