Threats

June 1, 2010June 1, 2010

Vegetable seeds safe after fire

Bad news from our friends at AVRDC. The much-needed and still incomplete extension to their genebank has been badly damaged by fire. Fortunately, there were no injuries, and the seeds in the old coldrooms (below) are safe. But it will now be several more months before the new genebank can finally be commissioned. Anyway, commiserations to AVRDC’s genetic resources unit. But I know they’ll bounce back stronger than ever.

June 1, 2010

Nibbles: Rice panicles, Cassava brown streak, NTFP

Gene controlling rice architecture may hold promise for increased yield. Unless, of course, it doesn’t.
Attempts to control a deadly cassava virus in central Africa. I hope someone is conserving those susceptible varieties. They may be useless now, but who knows what the future will bring? And more questions.
And following the Kibale post, more on non-timber forest products and their trade.

May 31, 2010

8th International Wheat Conference and BGRI 2010 Technical Workshop

Wheat boffins are meeting in St Petersburg. CIMMYT is blogging about it. ICARDA is blogging about it. A whole bunch of people are twittering. So there’s no excuse for not knowing what’s going on.

May 31, 2010May 31, 2010

Nibbles: Rust, Old rice, More old rice, Sticky rice, Mesoamerican balls, Prioritization, Legumes

Rust boffins meet in St Petersburg. Good luck to them: sounds like they’ll need it.
Did 3000-year-old rice really sprout in Vietnam? Nah.
Indian farmers queue up for old rice seeds. Not old as in the Vietnam case above though.
And more rice. Did the Chinese really use the sticky kind in mortar 1500 years ago? Yep.
More ancient technology. This time Mayan rubber.
“…a major leap forward in species-area relationship fitting…”: where will future habitat loss wreak the most havoc on plant species? And on crop wild relatives?
The pulses of Africa. Well, a couple of them.

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010

Nibbles: Hunter gatherers, Amaranthus and corn in Mexico, Protected areas and poverty, African ag, Pollan, Aquaculture in Laos, Range, Rainforest

Pygmies forced to take up gardening, and they’re mad as hell about it.
An amaranthus a day… And also from Mexico, saving maize from GMO nastiness. Oh, and the NYTimes does a number on maize domestication today to boot.
Protected areas not so bad for people after all. But do they conserve biodiversity effectively? At least when community-managed, that is.
African agriculture in theory and practice. Glib, I know. Get your own blog.
Pollan does his usual shtick. But he does it well.
You are subscribing to Danny’s nutrition thing, are you not? If you were, you’d know about the role of aquatic rice field species in rural Laotian diets.
So how do you restore prairie? Expert opinion summarized and synthesized to within an inch of its life. But you can also hear from a range expert directly.
Ok, so that’s grassland. If you wanted to restore a tropical rainforest you’d have to know about long-distance seed dispersal.