Tourism

Nibbles: Taro value addition, Tree genomics special issue, MSB database, Japanese tubers, Ghana farmer awards, Omani genebank, Mexican cemeteries, Rotation, Root interactions

Dalo chips! With illustrative goodness.
Tree genomes! Whole journal-full.
Seeds! From Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, that is. In a database. Or two. Online.
Japanese tubers! If anyone can find the actual video, I’d be very grateful. It’s not here yet. Or here. And I also want to find out more about the mythical Professor Sweet Potato.
Best farmer awards in Ghana! “He cultivates diverse crops…” Ah but not everyone is happy. Via.
An Omani genebank! Still “under process”? There was one of sorts 20 years ago when I worked there.
Day of the Dead! Nuff said.
Crop rotations! The NY Times plays catchup.
John Innes Institute video! Explains a couple of papers in Current Biology on root-microbe interactions, where the microbes are both good and bad.

U. of Minnesota has a poster of the pedigree of hop varieties which I covet.
Cool catalogue of the native potatoes of a bit of Ecuador. Via Red Electronica de la Papa.
Stark photos of a few heirloom apples, with descriptions.
Meanwhile, Brockwell Bake sows some heritage wheats. With stark photo
Report on the state of UK capacity in taxonomy. How many countries have reports on the state of their taxonomy? Anyway, here’s some of that capacity at work.
Farrago on some old olives in Jerusalem.
CIAT celebrates 45 years of existence.
Meanwhile, IITA pushes soil fertility management and cassava.
Arca-Deli Awards awarded.
Defra’s latest Biodiversity News has stuff on the importance of insect biodiversity to pest control and pollination in orchards.
The International Year of Quinoa, which is next year, has a website, and all sorts of associated social networking goodness. And here’s a nice little student video on the crop, for a somewhat different perspective.

Today’s genome is cowpea, yesterday’s was barley.
Maybe tomorrow’s will be sorghum?
More on that guerrilla food atlas thing.
So there’s an annual okra festival, and there’s a podcast about it.
Archaeobotanist says recent big rice genomics study changes nothing, is misleading. Why don’t you tell us what you really think, Dorian?

Up to their knees in wasabi. And, loving it.
iPlant Collaborative’s Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS) ver. 3.0 expands its coverage.
Marine bird e-Atlas goes live. Meah.
GFAR tweets about old videos. Must be a reason for it.
Podcast on using sweet potatoes in baby food. Might well come in useful more generally.
My friend Valerie and former employer SPC get a namecheck in story about world’s largest taro genebank.

If you liked our piece of a couple years back on a remarkable Indian mango tree, you’ll love Bhuwon’s latest, fuller write-up.
Open-source seeds? Isn’t that what the ITPGRFA was supposed to be ensuring?
How fisherfolk in Indonesia protect the reef.
Going wild turkey.
Mapping Cameroon’s forests. Interactively, of course.
A perennial roundup.
Old Fritz and the potato. Maybe genebanks should take a leaf (or tuber) out of his book?
“What constituted beauty, she wondered, in the scientist’s eye?”