Tourism

April 18, 2018April 19, 2018

A Nibble big enough to choke on

Yeah, yeah, it’s been quiet here for the best part of a month. Work, you know. When you notice lack of action here, though, that doesn’t mean that I’m being completely idle. Not always, anyway. Check on Twitter and Facebook, if you dare, and you’ll see new stuff on a fairly regular basis, because that’s easier to do than a fully-fledged blog post. Anyway, what I’ll do here is a mega-Nibble hoovering up snippets from the past few weeks that I posted on social media but not here.

Vegetable History 101.
If you have a heirloom of one of the above to name, try this neural network approach.
Just as long as the name doesn’t end up being racist.
It’s too late for some German veggies. Though not, it seems, for German forests. What’s the difference?
Not yet too late for Tanzanian wild veggies, but winter is coming. Maybe giving them cool names would help.
And for some North American indigenous crops too, thanks to some committed people.
And for beans in Mexico for that matter.
Why all the above is important.
And urgent.
And this is the resulting problem if you ignore that lesson.
You see, the Australians are on the case, with their bush tucker fixation.
Mind you, it’s not all sweetness and light: the quinoa bubble bursts.
Maybe we can make a game of this diversification lark. Oh, look, it seems we can.
You can even breed for it.
Wherein I pontificate about genebank data. Again.
Maybe these guys will listen?
These guys obviously did, and built a better peanut.
Yeah, but can you see them from space?
The cost of ending hunger. The cost of ensuring crop diversity conservation in genebanks seems, well, peanuts.
The archaeology of gardens. Two of my favourite topics, combined. If only there was beer too. And peanuts.
A banana is a banana is a banana. Not.
All those bananas? You can help to map them.
They’ll put them on Google Earth next, like Kew did for these beautiful natural areas, with all their crop wild relatives :)
A Japanese agricultural encyclopaedia. Illustrated to boot.
Or, for the more Euro-centric, food art at the Met…
This cheese should probably be at the Met there too.
And this weed strain may well soon be on sale in the gift shop.
The sweet potato made it to Oceania on its own.
Oh no it didn’t.
On the other hand, livestock generally need to be accompanied.
All the yeast belong China.

March 12, 2018March 9, 2018

Brainfood: Core collections, Food system sustainability, Sunflower breeding, Modern/traditional mosaic, Nepal earthquake response, Modelling erosion, Folate in potato, Argentinian andigena, Millet evaluation, Pigeonpea evaluation, Sugarcane evaluation, Bean drought genes, Threatened trees

An informational view of accession rarity and allele specificity in germplasm banks for management and conservation. Basically a better way of making cores.
Multi-indicator sustainability assessment of global food systems. Thankfully includes both “Shannon Diversity of Food Supply” and “Food Production Diversity”. No sign of the Agrobiodiversity Index, though, alas.
Cytoplasmic Diversity Studies in Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.): A Review. Have the wild relatives to thank for it.
Mosaic of Traditional and Modern Agriculture Systems for Enhancing Resilience. Refers specifically to rice irrigation systems, but could be generalizable, why not?
Post-disaster agricultural transitions in Nepal. To cardamon, mainly.
Simulating the Impacts of Climate Variability and Change on Crop Varietal Diversity in Mali (West-Africa) Using Agent-Based Modeling Approach. Less favourable and unstable climatic conditions lead to loss of diversity.
Genetic Diversity in Argentine Andean Potatoes by Means of Functional Markers. There’s a small group of weird, interesting ones.
Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) markers associated with high folate content in wild potato species. Ten-fold variation in content in in F2 population derived from cross between high folate diploid clone of wild Solanum boliviense and low/medium folate diploid S. tuberosum. Nice.
Identification of new sources of resistance for pearl millet downy mildew disease under field conditions. 20 really good ones out of 101. Could have been worse.
Assay of Genetic Architecture for Identification of Waterlogging Tolerant Pigeonpea Germplasm. 38 out of 128 survived. People are lucky this week.
Phenotypic evaluation of a diversity panel selected from the world collection of sugarcane (Saccharum spp) and related grasses. Out of 300, 27 were higher than commercial standards in dry or fresh mass. On a roll here.
Genotyping by Sequencing and Genome–Environment Associations in Wild Common Bean Predict Widespread Divergent Adaptation to Drought. Two genes identified. Let’s quit while we’re ahead. No, come on, let’s do another one.
Tree genetic resources at risk in South America: A spatial threat assessment to prioritize populations for conservation. 7 of 80 socieconomically important trees threatened across their range. Damn.

March 10, 2018March 9, 2018

Nibbles: Gros Michel, Poultry photos, Pigeonpea prebreeding, Murnong, Wheat breeding, Hass, Indian forest foods, Popcorn domestication, Mustard history, Historical botanists, Barges & Bread, Samoan distilling, Kenyan brewing

The quest for Big Mike. No, not Stormy Daniels’ latest. It’s a banana.
Ok, I’m going to resist the temptation of making the obvious follow-up joke in connection with this gallery of beautiful chickens.
Who needs chickens when you have pigeons. Ah, no, these are pigeonpeas.
Australia’s answer to the potato. Unclear what the question was.
Australia’s answer to frost-sensitive wheat: look in genebanks for resistant stuff.
The mother of all avocados. Kind of a Hass-been, though.
Avocado shmavocado, says India.
Are you not entertained? Have some popcorn!
And mustard for that hotdog. You know, like Mesolithic people did.
History of plant collecting double feature: Bradby Blake & Frank N. Meyer.
Listen to Jeremy on how grain made its way up the Thames.
A lot of grain also makes its way to Ft Collins. See what I did there?
Taro whiskey: I’ll drink to that.
Kenyan coffee to finish things off? Maybe not for long.

March 9, 2018March 9, 2018

Happy 10th birthday, Svalbard Global Seed Vault!

Yeah, so this happened.

But let’s not make it about me. For once. Let’s hear it for the Global Gatekeepers of Crop Diversity. Live the whole thing again vicariously on Twitter. And go to Mike Jackson for a round-up.

February 20, 2018

Nibbles: Stewart stewardship, Hot peppers, Coquito, Prunus africana, O’Keefe in Hawaii, Bean breeder, Kiwi breeding, Wasabi video

Martha goes to Svalbard. No sign of Snoop.
The Chileman. No, not Chillyman. Nothing to do with Svalbard.
Little nuts. Nothing to do with the Chileman.
Red stinkwood is a lot nicer than it sounds. I’ve got a couple myself.
O’Keeffe’s pineapples.
Citizen science gets to grips with soybeans in Germany.
Colin Leakey, he of the fartless beans, passes away.
How the kiwi fruit was saved.
The real wasabi.