- Let “The Bean Counters” show you where to collect wild Phaseolus.
- Protected areas get wikified.
- Expensive book published on the heritage breeds of New Zealand.
- Wild boar going crazy in France.
- Another Hawaiian taro festival. And why not.
- Ecosystems for climate change adaptation. No agroecosystems though.
- Moringa! Not just for people.
- Camelina! Not just for Europeans.
- What is it about barley wild relatives lately?
Zombi bean resurrected?
Vigna vexillata is a close relative of the cowpea (V. unguiculata) that (sometimes) rejoices in the common name Zombi Bean. (It is also called the tuber cowpea.) It’s hard to tell whether this is a “famine food” harvested from the wild, a plant being domesticated and on its way to becoming a crop, or a full-fledged crop species. Either way, scientists in Australia have been doing their darndest to understand how it can best be improved. The result, so far, is three back-to-back papers in Crop & Pasture Science.
- Genotypic variation in domesticated and wild accessions of the tropical tuberous legume Vigna vexillata (L.) A. Rich. doi:10.1071/CP10029
- Genetic compatibility among domesticated and wild accessions of the tropical tuberous legume Vigna vexillata (L.) A. Rich. doi:10.1071/CP10060
- Expression of qualitative and quantitative traits in hybrids between domesticated and wild accessions of the tropical tuberous legume Vigna vexillata (L.) A. Rich. doi:10.1071/CP10084
But not, yet, any improved varieties.
Nibbles: Wild Hordeum, Barley landraces, Funny cucumber, Dogs, Wild Manihot, Taxonomy, ABS, Capsicum farmer selection, Bulgarian genebank
- Crop wild relatives from genebank in use shock.
- Landraces from same genebank in use shock. Hopefully a full blog post is coming soon from the author himself.
- Would you eat this cucumber?
- Dog evolution, again.
- New wild cassava species found.
- Thank goodness for our name-based bioinformatics infrastructure, eh?
- The history of benefit sharing deconstructed. Nothing on ITPGRFA?
- Mexican chili farmers maintain rather than direct with their seed selection.
- My genebank is bigger than your genebank!
Nibbles: Abalone, Yak, Forests, Mountain plants, Yams, Ulmus, Apple, Banana
- We now know how to harvest abalone sustainably. Is there anything we cannot do?
- Wild yaks get assessed. Wait, there are wild yaks?
- “…forests played a central role in the rise of the modern state.” Not as flaky as it sounds.
- Andean plants at risk from, well, everything.
- Yams in Nigeria, from festivals to in vitro.
- London’s elms.
- “[L]ike biting into a perfume bottle, but without shards of glass piercing your tongue.” A knobbed russet.
- Banana evolution just got more complicated.
Nibbles: Grapes, Pakistan, Passiflora, Coconut, Assisted migration, Small is beautiful
- Illinois grape breeders turn to wild relatives. Wait, what?
- “Floods wash away Pakistan’s crop research efforts.” And everything else.
- Passion fruits run riot in Lessos, Kenya.
- CIAT experts aim to ease Colombia’s coconut disease squeeze.
- Botanists agonize over assisted migration.
- Gates Foundation puts stop to debate on smallholder productivity.