Nibbles: Rice breeding, West African agriculture, Asian AnGR, Wheat breeding, Chinese semiotics, Neglected plant at NordGen, Fledermaus, PPB

Brainfood: Conservation policy, Grasspea breeding, Modeling rice diseases, Maize roots, Literature on new oil crops, Native vs non-native trees in Indonesian city parks, Cherimoya maps, Darwin Core, Seed dispersal and conservation, Oxalis variation, Polyploidy and variation, Pollinators, Microsymbionts, Plant migration, Culture and agriculture

As ever, we have added most of these references to our public group on Mendeley, for ease of finding. “Most?” we hear you say. “What gives?” Well, Mendeley and some academic publishers still don’t play nicely. There’s nothing to stop you adding the paper in question by hand, if you’re so inclined, but we don’t really have the time. And if you do, please do it right.

Nibbles: Beetle diets, Seed hunters, NUS, Food security, Indian malnutrition, Craft Irish beer, Nordic livestock, Prosecco DOC, Artemisia, CGIAR

Nibbles: Bees and climate change, Native American seeds and health, Sustainable harvesting and cultivation, Tree death, Grass and C, Vegetables, Fishmeal, Big Milk

Today: Connections Edition, in which we pick low-hanging fruit, think outside the box, and join up the dots.

Tracking down White Park cattle

This call for information from Lawrence Alderson at Rare Breeds International just came through on DAD-Net. Minus the link, which I’ve added. Can anyone help?

The White Park is an ancient British breed of cattle. It was recorded at Dynevwr in the reign of Rhodri Fawr at least 1,150 years ago, and anecdotally maybe 1,000 years earlier than that. It is a distinctive long-horned animal, porcelain white with coloured points except for the tail which is white. It now is valued as a heritage breed, noted for its high-quality marbled beef and its efficiency of conversion of coarse herbage. It is endangered but has been exported to several countries including USA, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Germany.

A current project coordinated by Rare Breeds International is studying the degree of divergence between national populations. It already has demonstrated that descendants of cattle exported 50 years ago still have the same DNA profile as the current population in UK. In the course of this research RBI has discovered references in the twentieth century (1930s to 1990s) to White Park animals (also referred to as Park or English Park, and Ancient White Park in North America) in several zoological gardens in Europe, including Copenhagen, Prague, Riga, London and Berlin. We are interested to pursue further this thread of research to explore the possibility that the White Park was found more widely in zoological gardens. We request anyone with relevant information to contact RBI at rbisecretariat@mail.com and will be most grateful for your assistance.