- The land sparing vs sharing debate encapsulated in a controversy over San Francisco oyster farming.
- Bitter is good.
- BBC’s Farming Today on saffron in England, among other things.
- Want sustainable development? Invest in agriculture.
- Growing weed: here comes the science.
- “When you chew on a Camembert rind, you’re eating a solid mat of mold.” And probably GM to boot.
- Why do I sound so totally unprepared?
- Breeding better blueberries.
Parsnip seeds of success
Whatever the ICRAF genebank can do to get germplasm out there, the Warwick Crop Centre can also do, though admittedly these seem to be improved varieties, developed in collaboration with the private sector:
Seed packs to celebrate @warwickuni50 – and highlights @WarwickLifeSci @WarwickCrop and @Elsomsseeds partnerships pic.twitter.com/Y4mukYZ7RQ
— UKVGB (@WarwickGRU) September 24, 2015
Nibbles: Pig landrace, Campbell’s Soup tomato, HarvestPlus, CG & SDGs, Georgian wine, American vegetables, Kenya & nutrition, Equator Prize, Wheat breeding
- So there’s a “celebrity pork expert.” No, not David Cameron, Carl Blake.
- Nevermind about resurrecting pig breeds, how about resurrecting “America’s best tomato“?
- Mapping biofortification outreach.
- CG writes letter to heads of state on SDGs. But will they listen?
- How they store wine in Georgia.
- US needs more veggies. Don’t we all.
- Kenya is a nutrition star.
- The Equator Prize 2015 winners are in.
- Article on wheat illustrated with picture of millet labelled sorghum
Brainfood: Cowpea evaluation, Varietal mixtures, Eragrostis core, Nigerian cassava diversity, Turkish alfalfa, Italian wild grapes, Cleome veggie, AnGR history
- Genotypic difference in salinity tolerance during early vegetative growth of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.) from Myanmar. 3 out of 21 seems a pretty good proportion.
- Epidemiological and evolutionary management of plant resistance: optimizing the deployment of cultivar mixtures in time and space in agricultural landscapes. Best to combine with rotations.
- Barnyard millet global core collection evaluation in the submontane Himalayan region of India using multivariate analysis. Three groups: India, Japan, and everything else.
- Determinants of on-farm cassava biodiversity in Ogun State, Nigeria. Experience and size of farm.
- Historical Alfalfa Landraces Perform Higher Yield Under Dry Farming in Turkey. At least at these two locations in Kars. One does wonder why breeders bother, though.
- Identification and characterization of Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris populations in north-western Italy. Was thought to be lost in Piedmont, but 5 small wild populations found, in danger of contamination from the crop.
- Cleome viscosa: a promising underutilized minor crop. Worth a try, though the name is hardly promising.
- Changing values of Farm Animal Genomic Resources. From historical breeds to the Nagoya Protocol. Everything is political now. Welcome to my world.
Nibbles: Beautiful downtown Burbank, Oz rice weed and nuts, Teff embargo, Kew Gardens, Cherokee seeds, Vegetables semantics, MLN progress, Fishy chart, Inuit fishy diet, Bioversity photo fix, African food security, ICIPE cashes in, Root & tuber congress, Smallholders, EU agroecology, Sackville Hamilton, Kiwifruit history, USDA pathogen collection
- Luther Burbank “…was willing to cross just about anything that had leaves…”
- No, rice did not originate in northern Australia. Not in the sense those words are usually used.
- Aussies to embrace cannabis. But not in the sense those words are usually used.
- Australian exporters nuts for more than just macadamia. Ah, interdependence…
- Meanwhile, Ethiopian teff exporters licking their lips in anticipation.
- Kew is bigger than the sum of its parts.
- Cherokee Nation genebanker gets award.
- Yes, BBC, vegetables exist, let’s move on.
- Maize Lethal Necrosis on its last legs? Well, “progress is being made” at any rate.
- The Economist’s daily chart is on declining fish stocks. Why have they gone all warm and fuzzy lately? Something in the zeitgeist?
- Inuit are genetically adapted to their fishy diet.
- Damn it, I lost! Probably fixed.
- Africa sets up a new institution for food security. Which is not the same as hunger, we are told. But is it malnutrition.
- ICIPE scales up and out. More impact than any “new institution” is going to achieve.
- World Congress on Root & Tuber Crops has a new website.
- It’s the smallholders, stupid. Like the ones growing tea in Kenya, frinstance.
- The EU to discuss agroecology. Yesterday, alas.
- IRRI and Plant Treaty to share an IT-savvy genebank manager.
- How kiwifruit became kiwifruit.
- Microbes have collections too.