- Uncovering cover crops, the NY Times way.
- Uncovering coconut cultivation in Vietnam, the Roland Bourdeix way.
- Where to expect water shortages, and irrigation. Crying for a mashup.
- When a mango is not just a mango.
- Bread, and much else, according to the Tudors.
- A Belgian plantsman is revolutionizing gardening. No, really.
- How genomics will revolutionize rice breeding. No, really.
- How to get deeper barley roots for drought tolerance? Look to sorghum.
- And today’s miniature livestock is…a donkey.
Nibbles: Spinifex industry, Tsiperifery pepper, Pacific taro, Coffee double, Guadeloupe genebanks, Cucumber history, Gourmet maize, Peruvian cuisine, Heirloom rice
- Spinifex fibres for ultra-thin condoms, with indigenous approval.
- Piper borbonense getting its 15 minutes.
- Cook Islands shares taros with Samoa. Fingers crossed they’re TLB resistant.
- A couple of videos you may only be able to get on Facebook, or at least I can’t find other sources: Ethiopian coffee ceremony, and INRA/CIRAD’s banana and yam collections in Guadeloupe.
- Speaking of coffee, drink it while you can. And yes, it’s China’s fault.
- The cucumber in England through the ages.
- Gourmet maize in Oaxaca right now.
- All kinds of gourmet food in Peru right now too.
- Ok, ok, a Filipina chef on gourmet heirloom rice too.
Nibbles: Poleward migration, Pulse infographic, Vodka, Ancient horse DNA, Old fish, Certified cacao, On farm book, Coarse millets, Banana diversity, Pearl millet demo
- Species flying poleward.
- FAO unveils pulse infographic. No word on whether any are harvestable by machine.
- Potato farmer adds value the old-fashioned way.
- Talking of old, here’s a really old horse.
- And the oldest evidence of fermentation for food preservation. But you’ll need a strong stomach.
- KitKat is certified crap.
- How (and Why) Farmers Maintain Crop Diversity: The Book. Some reviews.
- And here’s a specific example from India.
- And here, courtesy of Bioversity’s Ann Tutwiler, is why farmers need some help sometimes.
- Oh and here’s another one. People visit ICRISAT genebank in Niger, see stuff they like.
Rebuilding the ICARDA collection
You’ll probably remember this statement four months ago from ICARDA’s Director General, Dr Mahmoud Solh. It was, after all, everywhere:
ICARDA requested some of its stored material in Svalbard in order to reconstitute the active collection in both Morocco and Lebanon in large bulks to meet requests for germplasm from the collections we have to meet the challenges facing dry areas globally. Once we multiply these varieties, ICARDA will return part of it to Svalbard as another duplicated set.
The seeds were duly retrieved by ICARDA genebank staff, and the work of multiplication is now in full swing, in both Morocco and Lebanon. Here’s the evidence, thanks to a picture tweeted by ICARDA durum wheat breeder Dr Filippo Bassi earlier today:
Nibbles: History edition
- No, I don’t think the history of potatoes is at an end, but I know what they mean.
- The history of rubber in pics.
- The history of the wheat dwarfing gene.
- Svalbard makes history.
- Sicily goes back into its history for its daily bread.
- Another foothold in history for Gary Nabhan.
- History, shmistory, we need to look forward. Biohacking is the future of food. Say twelve year olds.