Nibbles: Quasi conservation, Prioritization, Nabhan, Wild sunflower in Argentina, Pests and diseases, Ethiopian honey, African beer, Ash, Camel milk, Livestock conference, Bull breeding, Goldman Environmental Prize, Anastasia

  • Another nail in the coffin of Cartesian dualism in conservation? Yeah, right. Oooooh, here’s another. What next? Conservation-vs-use to bite the dust?
  • Now here’s a thing. Priority setting in conservation for plants in Turkey and sheep in Ethiopia. Compare and contrast.
  • “Bad-ass eco warrior” quoted on … apples.
  • Invasive species can be good … when they are sunflower wild relatives.
  • Pests and diseases: “New solutions could include novel resistant cultivars with multiple resistance genes, suitable epigenetic imprints and improved defence responses that are induced by attack.” I’ll get right on that. And more from Food Security.
  • Rare Ethiopian honey becoming rarer.
  • Also rare are micro-breweries in Africa. Alas.
  • Volcano bad for British diet. And Kenyan jobs.
  • So let them drink camel milk!
  • Conference on Sustainable Animal Production in the Tropics. Doesn’t sound like much fun? It’s in Guadeloupe!
  • And, there will probably be photographs of bulls of “stunning scrotal circumference.” Convinced yet?
  • Rios won for his work promoting a return to more traditional farming techniques focusing on seed diversity, crop rotation and the use of organic pest control and fertilizers to both increase crops and improve the communist-led island’s environment.”
  • Our friend Anastasia does Seed Magazine: “Until broader efforts to reduce poverty can take hold, crops with improved nutrients could be very important in reducing death and disease caused by nutrient deficiencies.”

Nibbles: Aubergines, Opuntia, Amazonian ag, Kenya, Swiflets, Coconut and Web 2.0, PROTA, Mexico, Fruit wild relatives

Towards the establishment of genetic reserves for crop wild relatives and landraces in Europe

The ECPGR In situ and On-farm Conservation Network Coordinating Group and others are organizing a symposium entitled “Towards the establishment of genetic reserves for crop wild relatives and landraces in Europe” at the University of Madeira, Funchal (Portugal), from 13-16 September 2010.

Conservation biologists, protected area managers and experts from the agrobiodiversity sector engaged in the management and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture are welcome to attend the symposium.

Interested? You can find out more on the website of the Centre for Macaronesian Studies of the University of Madeira, one of the co-organizers.

Costs, benefits, and the search for disease resistance

An epidemic of Fusarium head blight swept through the United states between 1998 and 2000, costing the wheat industry an estimated US$ 2.7 billion. That’s right: billion.

Salvation came from Chinese and Japanese landraces, especially a Chinese wheat called Sumai 3. To prepare for the inevitable mutation of the fungus, scientists at the USDA have broadened their search for resistance. They examined 87 Asian varieties of wheat, many of them old landraces, and found good levels of resistance in 26 of them. Better yet, some of the resistance genes seem to be different from the ones derived from Sumai 3, which means that they might offer protection against different varieties of the fungus.

Just knowing that various resistance genes exist, and having markers to select more resistant crosses from breeding efforts means that future outbreaks can probably be more effectively dealt with, which is reassuring. More to the point, for our purposes, this research raises again the question: how can anyone doubt the value of genebanks? Just one disease cost just one country US$2.7 billion over three years. Genebank accessions contain the solutions. Do you really need to know the cost of every accession to decide whether genebanks are worthwhile?