- Kenyan herbal medicines in the spotlight.
- Kenyan indigenous trees in the spotlight. The intersection of those two sets would be interesting to explore.
- And then if you mash it up with this…
- … you might still never predict rural Malawi to explode with interest in paprika.
- And yet, (a small bit of) rural America embraces (a version of) sustainability.
- While Bangladeshi farmers embrace participatory wheat variety selection. No idea what they found; the link there is down.
- Next up, participatory selection for efficient use of phosphorus by rape?
- This week’s super-modern chef sourcing strange stuff from the semi-wild gets it in New Jersey.
- Beetroot diversity. Ignore the recipes; focus on the chart of nutrition; has that research been published?
- As for potatoes, the People’s Plot thrives on Olympic glory.
- Quick now: what links Sicily to Kenya? Both make meals of cucurbit leaves!
- OK clever clogs: what links a neglected legume with destructive energy recovery practices? Fracking guar gum, that’s what! (h/t BPA.)
- Nuts, isn’t it? Anyone up for sequencing some 16th century coconuts?
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: All singing and dancing, FAO meets Big Data, Clone this, Patent nonsense, Frozen fish
- Fisherfolk of the Amazon landed on film. But do they sing about it? (And it’s not just an Amazon thing, this dancing and singing about agrobiodiversity. Not by any means.) And should they be doing more slashing-and-burning?
- FAO to put all its data in one basket. But including AnGR? WIEWS? One asks more in hope than expectation.
- One of the many challenges of vegetatively propagated crops (like potatoes): rapid multiplication. (Well, they could always do an SNP-based tetraploid map of the damn things, couldn’t they.) No such problems with seeds, of course.
- There’s been a rapid increase in the patenting of adaptation-related traits, and the private sector in industrialized countries is mainly responsible. Well there’s a surprise. But was that discussed at the CCAFS meeting on breeding objectives for Africa? And it’s just as well to remember that it’s not just breeding that’s needed. Oh, but by the way, you better grab those adaptations while you can…
- Regional SE Asian fish genebank proposed. That I’d love to see. Maybe they could share germplasm with, I dunno, Chicago? And not just.
Nibbles: Cannabaceae revisited, Farmer information, Sunflower genes, Urban foraging, Plant hunters, Forest gardens
- Hoping and doping: taxonomy of hops revised.
- What do farmers want? Where do they look for it? How much will they pay? IFPRI has answers.
- Van Gogh’s sunflower mutants explained.
- Gathering in the city: an annotated bibliography and review of the literature about human-plant interactions in urban ecosystems.
- Career advice: Plant Hunters.
- Coffee forest gardens improve food security.
Nibbles: New genebank, Urban ag, Cassava, Justice, School gardens
- Good news from Russia: A genebank in the permafrost. Yup, another one.
- Good news from Guatemala: Urban gardens for health and wealth.
- Good news from West Africa (which we know is not a country): magic cassava.
- Good news from Brazil: the World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Stability will prevent empty promises being made at Rio+20.
- Good news from the US: the Edible Schoolyard Project is online with scads of fun stuff for children and their teachers everywhere.