- Learn about CIAT’s reseach via the posters they put on slideshare. Couple on their beans and cassava genebank.
- Trying to speed up apple breeding.
- Biodiversity interventions find it difficult to fight poverty. How about agrobiodiversity interventions?
- More bad news: protected areas don’t work anyway. At least for trees in Burkina Faso.
- Boffins trying to spot contraband honey. There’s contraband honey?
- Gin drinkers told to start worrying.
- Forest of Belfast project to wind up, but not before finding really old oak.
Nibbles: Trees, More trees, Crops and trade, Pollination info, Anthocyanins
- Another day, another tree disease threatens the British landscape.
- Some Swedish trees are not doing too well either.
- Seeds of Trade. A virtual book at the NHM. Lots of info on the history of crops.
- What are the pollination needs of a particular crop? FAO will tell you if you ask nicely.
- Purple tea in Kenya. Luigi’s mother-in-law not impressed.
Nibbles: ILRI, Diversitas, Trees, Water use, Soil, Kenya, Microlivestock, Truffles, Climate data, Forests, Diseases, Plant breeding survey, Beer, and more beer, Pollinators
- ILRI annual programme meeting thing gets Twitter treatment. Web 2.0 seizes up.
- Via EcoagriculturePartners newsletter, news that agroBiodiversity has a new website. Web 1.0 surrenders.
- And the prize for the weirdest name for a tree-planting initiative goes to…
- The water footprint of pasta is greater than that of pizza. Still no cure for cancer.
- Microbes good for soil. I see that, and I raise you termites. Take that, Dirt Diva.
- Fish farming in dryland Kenya. Must get out to see one of these next time I’m there, maybe set one up on mother-in-law’s farm. And get her one of these funky backpacks while I’m at it. Wouldn’t want her to laze about.
- Farmer Brown (sic) from Ghana talks about his grasscutters.
- Ever wonder how one cultivates truffles? Wonder no more.
- FAO librarian answers agroclimatological query. Lots of databases for you to explore is the result.
- And also from FAO, the latest on the state of the world’s forests. More databases no doubt involved.
- Damn, you mean diversity can be good for disease?
- Study says that to “be effective plant breeders, … should also be equipped with strong critical thinking and time management skills, and a well-founded work ethic.” Still no cure for cancer.
- Climate change to affect beer? Now it’s personal!
- Wonder how Ugandans feel about that? Guide to Ugandan Beer, Part 1.
- Pollinators do the Harlem Flutter.
Bees? We don’t need no stinkin’ bees
It’s obvious really. If you have a problem in a billion-dollar industry — almonds — because your workforce — bees — are dying like flies, what do you do? Forget the bees. Breed almonds that don’t need pollinators!
Which is exactly what breeders at the USDA are doing. Actually, self-pollinating almonds are apparently nothing new. There’s a Spanish variety, Tuono, ((Don’t Google it unless you’re a motorcycle freak.)) that “has been around for centuries”. But it doesn’t suit the almond industry of California. Even before Colony Collapse Disorder became a problem the USDA geneticists were busy using Tuono as the pollen parent in a series of crosses, because in addition to dispensing with bees it has other good properties. And now eight new, self-pollinating varieties have been evaluated. In time, they may replace the standard, bee-demanding variety Nonpareil, which apparently accounts for 37% of California’s almond trees. ((Down from 45%, according to an undated FAO document.))
Oh, and if you’re really into almonds, you probably already know about The Almond Doctor.
Nibbles: Seeds, Genebanks, Backed up, Seed banks, Pollinators
- Molecular approaches to seed quality.
- CIAT answers the perennial question: how is Svalbard like a hard disk?
- Speaking of which, Svalbard is now the “world’s most diverse collection of crop diversity“. Er …?
- But … “Despite the rapid progress, Fowler said the bank still has significant holes in its collection“.
- Survival Seed Bank smackdown!
- Global pollinator declines: a review of a review.