Wild relatives

Nibbles: Old rice, New quinoa, Fishy stuff, Cropland landscapes, Forest landscapes, Old seed, Superdomestication, Intensification

Youth compiles list of rare and extinct rice varieties of Assam. Maybe he should look at weedy rice too?
Meanwhile, American farmers are learning to grow quinoa, probably including some rare varieties.
The smelliest fish in the world. No traceability needed for that one, I guess.
Cropland getting mapped. Presumably including the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). Help needed by both, by the way.
Follow the forest discussions at COP18. High on the agenda: what is a landscape? It’s what you study when you’re being holistic, no? Anyway, there’s got to be a connection to the previous links.
Boffins find a genetic marker for old seed. Will need to Brainfood this one.
Pat Heslop-Harrison breaks down superdomestication for you.
SRI gets a scaling up. What could possibly go wrong?

Where do new mushrooms come from? Hint: domestication of wild species has not stopped.
And resistance to fireblight in apples? Hint: a single specimen of an old variety.
How about help for flood-stricken Nigerian farmers? Hint: a gene bank!
Where do people get gender in agriculture all wrong? Hint: women may bring home the bacon, but if that threatens their husband’s status, rationality flies out the door.
Where, from 10-13 December, can you learn about “Crops from the past and new crops in adressing (sic) the challenges of the XXI century”? Hint: Córdoba, Spain.
Where did the Dust Bowl go? Hint: it never went away.
Where to get the straight dope on System of Rice Intensification? Hint: an SRI researcher may not be unbiased.
Where are government and civil society elaborating a National Plan for Agroecology and Organic Production? Hint: a river runs through it.

Palestinian rooftop gardens. Including crucifers, no doubt.
Brits support work with rice and wheat wild relatives. Among other things. They’ll probably use some of these genomics things.
Aussies support sweet potatoes. HarvestPlus rejoices.
That new Australian genebank. Will it have any sweet potatoes?
The agricultural legacy of Thomas Jefferson. It doesn’t say here, but I bet he was into sweet potato.
Hawaiian menus. What, no sweet potato?
Forget biotech, the road to sexy agriculture is via the supermarket. Where you can buy sweet potato. Maybe even of the organic persuasion.
Or maybe better tree seeds. Even in the Nordic countries. Or the US. Is cacao a tree?
Plans for special edition of Sustainability on neglected crops. Like amaranth?
Geographic targeting reaches roots/tubers. Using this newfangled atlas? Or no?
Treaty and Consortium love-in filmed. Thanks for sharing. It’s all part of this CGIAR perestroika thing, no doubt.
What that Kew coffee extinction paper really said.
Protected areas need work. Especially for coffee (see above).
Yeah but protected areas is not the only way to go, and Europe now has a bunch of biodiversity indicators for farmland. I guess it’s all part of some big plan.
Policy brief on sustainable use of PGR. Or, as we used to call it, on farm conservation.
Which you can kind of see happening here.