- We now know how to harvest abalone sustainably. Is there anything we cannot do?
- Wild yaks get assessed. Wait, there are wild yaks?
- “…forests played a central role in the rise of the modern state.” Not as flaky as it sounds.
- Andean plants at risk from, well, everything.
- Yams in Nigeria, from festivals to in vitro.
- London’s elms.
- “[L]ike biting into a perfume bottle, but without shards of glass piercing your tongue.” A knobbed russet.
- Banana evolution just got more complicated.
Nibbles: Grapes, Pakistan, Passiflora, Coconut, Assisted migration, Small is beautiful
- Illinois grape breeders turn to wild relatives. Wait, what?
- “Floods wash away Pakistan’s crop research efforts.” And everything else.
- Passion fruits run riot in Lessos, Kenya.
- CIAT experts aim to ease Colombia’s coconut disease squeeze.
- Botanists agonize over assisted migration.
- Gates Foundation puts stop to debate on smallholder productivity.
Nibbles: Bees, Food crises, Book, Drought, Video, Pavlovsk, Community genebank
- More on the one-two fungus-virus bee-killer combo.
- “In the end, all the brave talk about food self-sufficiency in Asia is just nonsense; ain’t never gonna happen.” Very strategic analysis.
- The Resilient Gardener, by Carol Deppe. Can’t wait to get hold of this, from one of the best ever.
- “African governments urged to increase uptake of drought tolerant maize.” Because that’s easier than drought-tolerant agriculture?
- The need for Agricultural Bioversity/Documentary Video. I guess I’ll have to find time to watch this. Unless you do first and tell us what you think.
- Belated: someone else finds coverage of Pavlovsk puzzling.
- Kenyan community sets up its own genebank to protect itself from evil hybrids and GMOs.
Nibbles: Musa wild relative, Soil biodiversity, Wild sorghum hybrids, Millet diversity, Bees, Garlic core collection, Heirloom seed saving, Nutrition, Fungal conservation, Sacred places
- New(ish) banana wild relative found in Mekong. Photo by Markku Hakkinen.
- Conserving soil biodiversity.
- Ecological fitness of wild-cultivated sorghum hybrids equal to wild parent.
- Pattern of genetic diversity in pearl millet determined by artificial, not natural, selection.
- The latest on the troubles of bees.
- Garlic gets cored. Totally SFW.
- Seed saving in the Hudson Valley.
- West African leaders say agriculture should be about nutrition. As opposed to?
- International Society for Fungal Conservation established. And that’s about it for now, but there are some ideas about what it will do.
A threatened genebanks roundup
It’s clear genebanks around the world are having a hard time. The poster child just at the moment is Pavlovsk, of course. But we’ve heard lately that Australia’s genebanks are also threatened. And we’ve also been following a similar situation over the past several months at Wellesbourne in the UK. Why is this happening? As chance would have it, I think a couple of recent posts here may hold some clues.
I think, for example, that our failure in the genetic resources conservation community to quantify — or at least communicate — costs properly is not, er, helping. And we still have a long way to go in facilitating the process of getting conserved material where it is most needed. So, maybe we’ve also seen in the past few days the answer to genebank funding. But that doesn’t mean we can ease up on getting our costs straight, and getting our material known and out there, which among other things means sorting out Genebank Database Hell.
Well, there’s another thing. We do also need to admit to ourselves that maybe, just maybe, not all genebanks are necessary. I hope Pavlovsk, the Australian genebanks and Wellesbourne survive and thrive. It will set a bad precedent if they go under, a very bad precedent, and in any case a genebank is more than just brick, mortar and seeds. It’s people and expertise, and we should fight for them. But if it’s not to be, I hope at least the unique material they have been conserving so diligently for so long makes its way speedily and safely to some other home, where its long-term conservation and availability will perhaps be better ensured.