- 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.
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.
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.
Brainfood: Hari, Gian Tommasso, Cold sorghum, Introgression, Spanish olives, Soybean minerals, Lentil minerals, Durum wheat stress, Livestock guard dogs diversity, Horse diversity, Agricultural landscapes
- Hari Deo Upadhyaya: Plant Breeder, Geneticist and Genetic Resources Specialist. “A prolific writer and with immense passion for teaching, Hari Upadhyaya has established a school of his own for the management, evaluation and use of genetic resources for crop improvement.”
- The Contribution of Professor Gian Tommasso Scarascia Mugnozza to the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity. “It is difficult to fully remember the work of Gian Tommaso Scarascia Mugnozza, a man of charismatic personality, brilliant intelligence, great culture, with an extraordinary capacity of translate his ideas and intuitions into concrete projects”
- Evaluation of sweet sorghum accessions for seedling cold tolerance using both lab and field cold germination test. Try the lab first.
- Does introgression of crop alleles into wild and weedy living populations create cryptic in situ germplasm banks? Yes. Review based on sunflower.
- Variability in Susceptibility to Anthracnose in the World Collection of Olive Cultivars of Cordoba (Spain). About a third of 308 varieties resistant, including the most widely grown, while another widely common one is very susceptible.
- Genomewide association study of ionomic traits on diverse soybean populations from germplasm collections. Didn’t even have to grow them out.
- Bio-fortification potential of global wild annual lentil core collection. This lot were grown out, and Turkey and Syria found to be particularly diverse.
- Genome-wide association analyses identify QTL hotspots for yield and component traits in durum wheat grown under yield potential, drought, and heat stress environments. On chromosomes 2A and 2B.
- Investigating the population structure and genetic differentiation of livestock guard dog breeds. Surprisingly “reasonable” levels of diversity within breeds.
- Genetic monitoring of horses in the Czech Republic: A large-scale study with a focus on the Czech autochthonous breeds. Same for these guys, though breed differentiation was not as good.
- Exploring Agricultural Heritage Landscapes: A Journey Across Terra Incognita. “… a perspective on agricultural landscapes as complex, adaptive biocultural systems has not yet been incorporated into conservation practice.”
Nibbles: Forages info, Seed bag, Black rust, Brazilian fruits, Mutant Millets, Biotech conference, Nutrition, RTBFoods
- The latest tropical forages newsletter.
- The Edens Bluff seed bag for your pleasure. You’re welcome.
- SciDev.net thinks Yemen is in North Africa. Anyway, be afraid.
- Umbu and licuri are helping Brazilian farmers. Yeah, I don’t know what they are either. IFAD wants you to google them, I guess.
- The Mutant Millet project is a name to conjure with.
- As is the VIII International Scientific and Practical Conference on Biotechnology as an Instrument for Plant Biodiversity Conservation (physiological, biochemical, embryological, genetic and legal aspects).
- Four ways nutrition is good for development. Only four?
- What gets a new tuber accepted? Now there’s a project to find out. Only now?