You’ll have to take my word for it, unless you read Chinese, or can make head or tail out of the Google translation of the announcement on the Environmental Information E-News website, but it looks like a number of accessions of Setaria millet from the USDA collection have been “repatriated” to some Taiwanese hilltribe communities who had lost them over the years. Me, I’d have asked for stuff from other places too while I was at it, what with climate change and all, but anyway. There will apparently be more on the project on the website of the Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University, but again you’ll need some language skills to get the full benefit. Prof. Warren H.J. Kuo is the man in charge. The word is that Taiwan’s Public Television Service will upload something in English to youtube very soon. Looking forward to that.
Nibbles: Neanderthal, CWR, Bioinformatics, Svalbard, Old Armenian wine, Maple syrup, Plants databases, Bananas in trouble
- Neanderthals cooked and ate plants, but did not use toothbrushes.
- Andy Jarvis talks up a crop wild relatives storm.
- Towards an information infrastructure for the global genebank system. Maybe.
- Aussies send seeds to wrong Global Seed Vault.
- Oldest winery found in Armenia. Search still ongoing for oldest wino. Maybe in Lebanon?
- Oh, to be at the Bigleaf Maple Syrup Festival!
- The most important thing to happen in botany in, what, a couple of weeks? Ah, but the backlash is here.
- Colbert finally works out why his high school teacher put condoms on bananas. Here’s his informant.
Nibbles: Iron, Nepal, Livestock, Rats, Kew, Wheat, Carbon
- Iron-rich potatoes: from genebanks to “improving health in poor communities”.
- Agricultural intensification in Nepal; positive impacts vs “potential negative implications”. Via.
- Stray livestock wreak havoc in Sri Lanka. h/t CIAT.
- New book on “ecologically based rodent management”. Rodents say: “Rats!”
- Kew Director looks forward to 2011.
- More on North America’s wonderful wheat breeders and their ability to weather climate change.
- Plantations more profitable than pasture in Queensland — in a model that includes $4.4/tonne of carbon sequestration.
Nibbles: Yemen, Seed moisture, Irish fruits, Indian genetic erosion, Goji, Sustainable Ag, Green Revolution,
- Probably way more than you want to know about food security in Yemen, but stunning nonetheless.
- NordGen tells us how to measure seed moisture content. In Russian.
- The Irish have benefited from at least one bank. Alas, that bank is Pavlovsk.
- Indian farmers turning their back on traditional crops because of climate change. Hope NBPGR is on the case.
- Goji berries only as good as other fruit and veg, with “significant placebo effect”.
- [W]e are in the midst of shaping a new perspective on sustainable agriculture, it says here. Right.
- All you ever wanted to know about Green Revolution 2.0, thanks to Anastasia.
- Speaking of which .. sustainable ag under discussion.
TLB resistant varieties kicking their heels, twiddling their thumbs
Readers with a long memory will remember that it was back in the summer that we first pointed to worrying signs that Taro Leaf Blight might be in West Africa. By October TLB was pretty much confirmed in Cameroon and the Pacific had offered its resistant varieties. The offer has not yet been taken up. Now there’s another flurry of activity at Pestnet, triggered by news of devastating losses in Nigeria. And John Cho from Hawaii informs us that there has been success in breeding for the disease in the Dominican Republic too. What will it take to get the TLB resistant varieties that we know exist in a few places around the world to where they are clearly urgently needed? This from the blurb on a new, and very timely, book on taro just out from Bioversity:
While new market opportunities and taro’s versatility are responsible for its growing popularity in markets, diseases and climate change also pose ever greater threats to its production and distribution. The current outbreak and spread of the devastating taro leaf blight in West Africa clearly highlights this vulnerability. By taking a global approach to the crop, the authors highlight ways to address new outbreaks of pathogens such as taro leaf blight.