- GIBF taxonomy is broken. We’re doomed. No, but it can be fixed. Phew.
- Maybe start with a unique identifier for taxonomists? Followed by one for genebank accessions… Yeah. Right.
- Domesticating animals won’t save them. And more on the commodification of wildlife. Is that even a word?
- Geomedicine is here. Can geonutrition be far behind? We’re going to need better maps, though.
- Saving heirlooms, one bright student at a time.
- “Botanists Make Much Use of Time.” If you can get beyond the title, there’s another, quite different, but again quite nice, seed saving story on page 3.
- “Why aren’t these plants the poster children [for plant conservation]?” You tell me.
- Or, instead of doing something about it, as above, we could have a week of Collective Rice Action 2012.
- You can park your sourdough here, sir.
- How Thoreau is helping boffins monitor phenology. But there’s another way too.
- “She drinks coffee. She farms coffee. She studies coffee.” Wild coffee.
- Massive meet on the Rambo Root. Very soon, in Uganda.
- Ketchup is from China? Riiiight. Whatever, who cares, we have the genome!
- And in other news, there are truffles in Qatar. But maybe not for long.
- The weirdness of cashews.
- The normalcy of home gardens as a source of food security — in Indonesia.
- Ok, then, the weirdness of oolong tea.
- Aha, gotcha, the normalcy of office bacterial floras! Eh? No, wait…
Nibbles: CGIAR, Breeding, Shamba Shape-up, Beach, Plant Cuttings, Cabbage pic, Leaf monitor, European AnGR and PGR, Dutch CWR post-doc, Allium on the Highline, Brazil forest code, Japanese rice in Oz, Indian genebank sell-off, Jersey apple genebank, Hazelnut milk subsitute, SPGRC, Urban veggies roundup, Spicy tales, Agroecological zonation
- Frank Rijsberman aims to build a “strong Consortium.”
- Teaching tools aim to improve capacity in plant breeding. And no, I didn’t mean anything by the juxtaposition, settle down.
- Kenyan reality show aims to enhance rural livelihoods. What, are you trying to be funny? No, I tell you, it’s all a massive coincidence.
- You know what, why don’t we just all go to the beach and relax? Nothing like combining work with pleasure…
- You could read the new Plant Cuttings there.
- Or look at 3D photos of cabbages.
- Or fiddle with the latest geeky plant gadget.
- PDF of the European dictionary of domesticated and utilised animals. From the folks at the European Regional Focal Point for Animal Genetic Resources (ERFP). Which is news to me. Relationship to the equivalent on the crops side unclear.
- Speaking of Europe, someone at the Dutch genebank studying gaps in the conservation of crop wild relatives. Welcome to the club.
- Well this sort of thing is not going to help with any gap analysis, is it? Qualifies as assisted migration though, perhaps, which is kinda cool. And may well be needed.
- I wonder what the Brazilian forest code means for crop wild relatives.
- Traditional Japanese rice variety grown in Queensland to help Fukishima victims. Well, yes, but it’s not exactly charity we’re talking about here. And what’s it going to do to all the wild rice there? Which I’m willing to bet is a gap of some kind.
- Speaking of altruistic gestures, the idea to, er, sell the Indian genebank encounters some, er, opposition.
- No plans to sell anything from this new Jersey apple genebank. Except maybe the cider? I wonder, any hazlenut genebanks out there? No, don’t write in and tell me.
- The genebank of the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre given a bit of a face-lift on VoA. At least in the trailer, starting at 0:45. Not sure how to get the full thing, but working on it…
- Latvian government plants small veggie patch in meaningless gesture. Paparazzi promptly tread all over it. Not that such things can’t be nice, and indeed useful. Oh, and here comes the history. But maybe they should have taken a slightly different tack.
- “Orange is the colour of curry.” Why spice is nice. And here comes the science on that.
- And speaking of heat, FAO very keen to tell you what zone you’re in. Oh, hell, there go another couple hours down the drain as I try to navigate the thing.
Nibbles: Livestock, CWR, Extremophiles, Museum exhibits
- How livestock help feed the world.
- The latest CWR newsletter from PGR Secure.
- “…humans have inadvertently been probing the environmental envelope of carbon-based life for thousands of years simply by experimenting with pickling, salting, smoking, and refrigeration.”
- A better way for museums to preserve rice plants. In other news, museums interested in preserving rice plants.
Brainfood: Alfalfa, Date palm, Apricot, Collecting, Reintroduction, Ribes, Payments
- Assessment of genetic diversity among alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) genotypes by morphometry, seed storage proteins and RAPD analysis. Morphology fits with geography, the others don’t.
- Insights into the historical biogeography of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) using geometric morphometry of modern and ancient seeds. Analysis of seed outlines using fancy maths identifies centres of diversity and migration routes.
- Loss of genetic diversity as a signature of apricot domestication and diffusion into the Mediterranean Basin. Or you could use microsatellites. Result: an Irano-Caucasian centre of domestication and two migration routes, N and S of the Mediterranean.
- Big hitting collectors make massive and disproportionate contribution to the discovery of plant species. Therefore, fund a small number of expert collectors in the right places. Luigi stands ready.
- Success Rates for Reintroductions of Eight Perennial Plant Species after 15 Years. Are pretty pathetic. Makes you wonder if all that collecting is worth it.
- Conservation of endemic insular plants: the genus Ribes L. (Grossulariaceae) in Sardinia. Seems rather a fuss for 1 species and 1 subspecies, crop wild relatives or not.
- Indicator-based agri-environmental payments: A payment-by-result model for public goods with a Swedish application. Hang on a minute, why is crop diversity not there?
Nibbles: Urban cows, Nutrition conference, Island conservation, Chaffey, Uganda rice collecting, Heirloom prize tomato, Metrics, Investing
- Breeding cows for cities. What about the ones that are already there? Oh and happy birthday, Susan!
- Nutritionists meet. Will they discuss diversity?
- Conservation on islands: Bermuda and Malta.
- Plant Cuttings. Rejoice.
- Rice collected in Uganda to be in the ITPGRFA’s Multilateral System. Was there ever a doubt?
- ‘Amish Destor’ tomato wins big.
- Metrics for Biodiversity is not about what you imagine it ought to be about. (So why link to it? To keep ’em honest.)
- Investing in natural alternatives offers excellent returns … and for agriculture?