If you were intrigued by Cary Fowler’s reference during his TED talk to the book “The Apples of New York,” you’ll be pleased to hear that it is online in a variety of formats. You can download it, or read it online at Google Books. Incidentally, there’s also a similar book on the pears of New York, though by a different author, “the sixth in a series of monographs on fruits, all of which have become classic references on the fruit cultivars of the period.” The pear book mentions a specific tree, the Endicott Pear Tree at Danvers, Massachusetts. That tree, which may have come to America from England on the Arbella in 1630, is still there. It is said to be the “oldest living fruit tree in North America,” although I’m pretty sure the word “exotic” should be in there too, and I do wonder about Mexico.
Nibbles: Forest smells, Paris herbarium, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Vertical farms, Biofuels
- Taking in the Atmosphere of the Forest is good for you.
- The Paris herbarium sorts itself out. ‘Bout time too.
- Some scientists are … keeping seeds on ice for future generations, but one Arizona seed farm is cultivating them in the desert sun.
- At last. Ford Denison blasts the vertical farm nuts. So we don’t have to.
- Fill ‘er up — with watermelon juice?
Nibbles: Bee genes, Organics, Swaminathan, Apples, Africa, Late blight, More bees, Agroforestry
- USDA screens bee genes, does not find smoking gun.
- Organic industry needs to focus on “wider benefits to avoid losing customers to other ethical issues”. Er … right.
- M.S. Swaminathan talks to the Wall Street Journal. With added video goodness.
- UK newspaper discovers the threatened home of the wild apple.
- Sustainable farming is the way forward for Africa. Course it is.
- Blight resistant potatoes. No, really. They are.
- The Barefoot Beekeeper.
- ICRAF identifies a silver-bullet tree to revive African soils.
Nibbles: Pluots, Village chickens, Axolotl, Artisanal fishing, Fruit and climate change, Stamps, Hornless cattle, Artemisin for malaria, Aquatic agroecosystems characterization, Speciation and ploidy
- What’s the difference between pluots and plumcots? By the guy who wrote the book.
- ACIAR publication on village chickens, and another. Thanks, DAD-Net.
- Modeling the axolotl, the edible Mexican salamander, before it’s too late.
- Artisanal fishing data. Via.
- USDA looking to expand its fruit collection to cope with climate change. NOt the only ones, I imagine.
- Danes stamp on allotments. No, wait. Allotments on Danish stamps.
- Aussies find genetic marker for hornless cattle that will jump on barbie by themselves.
- Breeding better Artemisia annua.
- The diversity of farmer-managed aquatic systems in SE Asia.
- 15% of angiosperm speciation events are accompanied by ploidy increase. Much more in domesticated species, I bet.
Mapping Argentinian pests and diseases
The Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria in Argentina has a new online pest and disease atlas out. It’s in Spanish, but pretty intuitive to use. You can search by host or by pest/disease organism. And you get a bunch of references, descriptive notes, photos and a map, albeit a static one — not sure how updating will be done. Below is the distribution of Setosphaeria turcica, the causal agent of Northern Leaf Blight in corn, for example. Would be interesting to mash this kind of thing up with the distribution of tolerant material. Must look into that. And of course one could do some climate change prediction modeling too. Thanks to IIALD.
