- “Housed in the towering old 1926 Sonoma County Bank, it’s hard to miss the Seed Bank.” And who would want to anyway.
- Of apples, leaf miners and bacteria. Great story.
- Best synthesis and analysis of the Mongolian dzud story so far.
- Visualize your GPS data! Not agrobiodiversity, I know, but I don’t have another blog.
- Coca myths debunked. Sniff sniff.
- “Crop domestication and the first plant breeders” book charpter online.
- Rebranding Asian carp. Hard row to hoe. Thanks, Don.
- 190,000 year old clothes had lice. 190,000 year old humans had clothes?
- More citizen science stuff, this one on effect of climate change on plant phenology in the US.
- IFAD publishes bunch of livestock-related papers. ILRI, are you listening?
- “It’s 36 percent more efficient to grow grain for food than for fuel.” Good to have a number.
- Boffins do their aDNA thing on Chinese pigs, find continuity, multiple domestication, sweet and sour sauce recipe.
- Soil Association begs to differ on that whole
UKworld-needs-to-double-food-production thing.
Nibbles: Food Security, GIS, Neoliberalism, Herbaria
- Food security? Can you say Eyjafjallajökull? Well, no, neither can I. But I know a man who can.
- Got something worth saying on GIS in Africa?
- From government intervention to the free market and back again. Neat trick if you can do it.
- Restoring Kabul’s herbarium “will vastly improve Afghan research capacity”.
Nibbles: Aubergines, Opuntia, Amazonian ag, Kenya, Swiflets, Coconut and Web 2.0, PROTA, Mexico, Fruit wild relatives
- More either-or stuff from the Guardian on the Indian GM brijal story.
- The USDA prickly pear cactus germplasm collection gets some exposure. And how many times can one say that.
- Much better title from Discover on that ancient northern Amazonian earthworks story.
- Kenyan foresters tell people to eat bamboo. Luigi’s mother-in-law politely demurs. On the other hand, she might like this.
- Swiflet farming? Swiflet farming.
- Really heated exchange on paper on coconut lethal yellowing in Yucatan develops on Google Groups. I love the internet.
- PROTA publishes expensive book on promising African plants. Promises, promises. NASA promised us the personal jetpack. Where are we with that?
- Nice summary of that Mesoamerican agricultural origins story we blogged briefly about a few days ago. So what exactly do you call hunter-gatherers who also grow crops?
- First International Symposium on Wild Relatives of Subtropical and Temperate Fruit and Nut Crops will be held March 19-23, 2011 in Davis, California on the campus of the University of California, Davis. Book early.
CGIAR Science Forum 2009 papers go online
Crop Science is publishing papers from the CGIAR Science Forum 2009. Lots of interesting stuff, including on biofortification and diet diversification, perennial favourites here of course. And all open access! Thanks, Jeff.
Luna Trick: Pea breeding revealed
Of course there’s plant breeding and plant breeding, but if you really want to know how rewarding it can be, take a look at Rebsie Fairholm’s latest round-up of her pea-breeding project. The point Rebsie makes so clearly is that while there is a little bit of technique to master, a successful project is much more about good record-keeping, patience and passion. Right now she’s got a new variety that is stable for pod colour, flower colour and edible pods (and a creamy calyx colour “that gives this variety an extra beauty factor in the garden”). This year, the fourth generation, she’ll be working on height, pod type, flavour and seed colour. Even now her selections look remarkable, and I trust her on taste. Things can only get better in the coming season.