- Higher maize yields? Plant cover crops between the rows.
- Barley tempeh! My kind of food exploration.
- Danny Hunter impresses Irish Times with need to conserve biodiversity.
- UK devotes millions to research for “bigger yields of better quality fruits and vegetables”.
- Germans embrace high-tech urban agriculture — cautiously.
- Put farmers’ markets near medical centres for added benefits. What happens when everyone’s so healthy they don’t need the doctor?
Nibbles: Marker assisted selection, Ecoagriculture, Tomato grafting, Food sovereignty, Rice genomes, Other genomes, Molecular toolkit, Yaks, Evotourism, Sandalwood
- Yale University magazine drinks the fast-track breeding KoolAid panacea.
- Compare and contrast. Repeat. Endlessly.
- Grafting tomatoes is hot for lots of reasons; but how does it protect against leaf-borne diseases? And not just tomatoes, actually.
- Getting the lowdown on that “food sovereignty” farrago.
- And today’s DNA sequencing will solve world hunger and cure bunions story.
- Genomics also good for “health, agriculture, livestock, fisheries and biodiversity” in Philippines. Have we forgotten anything?
- Well yeah, you forgot your handy molecular toolkit.
- Meanwhile, back in the real world, the choice is between forests and yaks.
- More hard choices: evotourism destinations. But check it out, there be agricultural biodiversity too!
- And another one: to go to the International Sandalwood Symposium, or not to go?
Nibbles: PGR course, Vegetable seed kits, Maize data, Rice metabolomics, Rewilding, Sheep diversity, Llama economics, Canary flora, Cuba urban ag, Ducks, Cynara, Food sovereignty
- The annual Wageningen agrobiodiversity conservation course is in India this year. Hannes says it’s really good.
- AVRDC’s veggie seed kits are a hit in Orissa.
- CIMMYT swimming in data. Waving, not drowning.
- IRRI not doing badly either. But “quantitative train loci” is a new one on me.
- Australia thinking about introducing elephants. Yeah because that sort of thing has been such a success in the past.
- Well, actually, with sheep, I suppose it has, in a way. And the genetics says breeders have a lot of diversity to play with still.
- Your mama is a llama.
- The Island of Dogs has crop wild relatives. No, not the one in London.
- Cuba goes for new urban crops. And not for the first time, Shirley. But what about the old ones?
- Quick, duck! This piece has been rather a hit for me over on Facebook.
- VII International Symposium on Artichoke, Cardoon and Their Wild Relatives: The (Very Expensive) Book.
- Food sovereignty “started in New England”. Huh? And proponents “want to eat and sell the food they grow free from interference from state and federal regulators”. Huh?
Nibbles: Landscapes, Ireland, Veitch’s, Purple tomato
- Revitalising socio-ecological production landscapes. It’s all the buzz, even though it doesn’t trip off my tongue.
- And the buzz keeps building for AgBioDiv 2012 in Ireland, 9 February.
- The great house of Veitch — but not a word about their many veg varieties.
- The first “really” purple tomato now available as seed.
Nibbles: Indian livestock, Borlaug book, iFOn, Brassica meet, Pat, Agave, Penguins
- More evidence of India’s fascination with little-known indigenous
cattle breeds. - Forbes reviews Borlaug bio.
- FAO Forestry has a nifty new mobile app. No idea why.
- VI International Symposium on Brassicas and XVIII Crucifer Genetics Workshop looking for sponsors. Any ideas?
- Prof Pat Heslop-Harrison is today’s “Face of Plant Cell Biology“.
- Of course it is a daft idea to claim rights over the word “agave”. But will anyone listen?
- Blimey! A penguin is like a lime juice.