Threats

July 29, 2013

Nibbles: Baobab, Courses, Social Media, “Exotic” edibles, Cereals on display, Ithyphallic lettuce, Ancient manure, Entomophagy, SRI, Weed evolution

Quick catch-up after 10 days away edition. If I missed anything spectacularly important, it’s bound to resurface.

A baobab (not the baobab) in danger of extinction.
Could it be saved by attending a course on Contemporary Approaches to Genetic Resources Conservation and Use?
And if it’s courses you’re interested in, we have:

Agriculture nutrition linkages, also from Wageningen.
Agroecology – the Future of Farming?, from the College of Enlightened Agriculture at Schumacher College. Why the weaselly question-mark?
And a conference on domestication.

The value and use of social media as communication tool in the plant sciences deconstructed by AOBBlog.
AOBBlog also gives the “cunning culinarists” at Kew some stick on their 100 exotic edibles.
Personally, I’d quite like to try Dead Man’s Fingers.
And take a look at Kew’s new display of summer cereals.
I don’t see any mention, however, of lettuce as a sacred sex symbol, with added vocabulary-enhancing properties.
And speaking of manure, its use is almost as old as agriculture.
If I had a donut for every why-don’t-we-all-eat-insects article I’ve read, I’d be spectacularly overweight by now.
Big Picture Agriculture offers An Interview with Cornell’s Dr Erika Styger about the System of Crop Intensification (SRI-Rice).
Is watergrass (Echinochloa) a problem for SRI-Rice? I don’t know, but it supports Ford Denison’s argument about the speed of evolution in weeds …
… prompted by Carl Zimmer’s article on weeds in the New York Times.

July 12, 2013July 12, 2013

Nibbles: Brazil nut, PVP, Dog evolution, Plant Treaty in India, Kerala veggies, Rust tracking latest, Adapt or die, Quinoa latest, NZ seed exchange, African soybeans, Ancient aquaculture

The Brazil nut needs its pollinators.
How USDA protects plant varieties.
American dogs are Asian, not European.
~~India~~ Nepal working out how to implement the ITPGRFA.
Kerala’s vegetable terrace gardeners.
Haven’t heard much about Ug99 lately, have we? Doesn’t mean people aren’t keeping a careful eye on it.
Climate change 10,000 times faster than vertebrate evolution.
Why quinoa is not “taking over the world.”
Not even New Zealand. Though not for want of trying.
In the meantime, soybeans taking over Africa?
Aquaculture that’s sustainable and ancient. Includes taro fish ponds, which for some reason seem to me cool beyond measure.

July 11, 2013July 11, 2013

The Indonesian fires and crop wild relatives

I know what you’re wondering. You’re wondering whether those fires in Indonesia which are causing so much trouble with haze in Singapore and other neighbouring places are also endangering any crop wild relatives back home. Well, thanks to the following Twitter exchange with the GIS people at Kew, I now know (or have been reminded, actually) that NASA makes available global data on active fires:

@AgroBioDiverse @worldresource yes with GeoCAT & kml layer import – this is from last 24 hrs http://t.co/3utE5w6cMb pic.twitter.com/RqtpAIsm0n

— KewGIS (@KewGIS) July 10, 2013

We can of course mash that up in Google Earth with, say, the distribution of wild rice (Oryza spp) from Genesys. That would be the little pale blue circles in the map reproduced below.

Which does suggest that at least some of the Indonesian fires may be occurring in wild rice habitats. They may actually be beneficial to some of the weedier species, though, for all I know. Anyway, as ever, it’s nice to have the data. And, just as importantly, be able to play with it.

July 8, 2013July 3, 2013

Brainfood: Leafy greens, Korean rice, Molecular breeding, Poultry conservation, Tree genomes, Pathogen genetics, Grazers and CC, Sustainable rangelands, Available land, Ecosystem services

Analysis of urban consumers’ willingness to pay a premium for African Leafy Vegetables (ALVs) in Kenya: a case of Eldoret Town. An 80% premium! But in Eldoret. And Nairobi?
Analysis and comparison of the γ-oryzanol content based on phylogenetic groups in Korean landraces of rice (Oryza sativa L.). Some groups are browner than others.
What is the SMARTest way to breed plants and increase agrobiodiversity? Just another name for MAS. But some crops are SMARTer than others.
Conservation of local Turkish and Italian chicken breeds: a case study. Turks can learn from Italians. And probably vice versa, I bet, although that’s not explored as much here.
Open access to tree genomes: the path to a better forest. Hard to argue with. The open access bit more than the genomes bit.
Evolution, selection and isolation: a genomic view of speciation in fungal plant pathogens. Know your enemy. Easier to figure out how new species become different than how they stay that way.
Long-Term Climate Sensitivity of Grazer Performance: A Cross-Site Study. Hotter conditions means poorer forage quality means smaller bison. And maybe cattle. All other things being equal, like genetics, and range management. Which of course they never are.
Ecosystem function enhanced by combining four functional types of plant species in intensively managed grassland mixtures: a 3-year continental-scale field experiment. See what I mean? And more.
Estimating the world’s potentially available cropland using a bottom-up approach. Less than you’d think.
Spatial interactions among ecosystem services in an urbanizing agricultural watershed. Very very limited places provide multiple services, especially crop production and water quality, which means you need to protect huge areas. But they’ll be mosaics.

July 5, 2013July 6, 2013

Nibbles: Sustainable aquaculture, Mekong fish project, Peruvian anchovetas, Ugandan fishing standards, Bangladesh fish celebrations, Beef vs fish, FAO on GIS

Sustainable fish farming in Spain. With video goodness.
A project to estimate the value of Mekong fish.
Eating fish, rather than feeding them to pigs, to conserve them in Peru. The fish, not the pigs. And more on the same fish, but another place. I think it’s the same fish anyway.
Codex Alimentarius standards are important even to Ugandan artisanal fisherfolk. Also with video goodness.
It’s National Fish Week in Bangladesh.
“So should we mourn that the cow is overtaken by the fish?”
Fish need GIS too.