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Pest and disease watch

California is synonymous with fruits and vegetables. An omnivorous pest would be a terrible thing. Cue the light brown apple moth, Epiphyas postvittana. LBAM, as we’re being familiar, would be better known as LBEM, the light brown everything moth, according to one expert quoted in the New York Times, because its larvae munch on just about anything green, including the grape vines of Napa county where it has just been found in large numbers. Omnivory suggests that diversity is unlikely to be much protection.

Then there’s potato wart ((I far prefer the alternative name Black Scab, but that’s probably just me.)), caused by the fungus Synchytrium endobioticum. It is so long-lasting in the soil that even though the direct economic losses are small, it causes enormous indirect losses as farmers are prevented from growing potatoes, according to a (long and thorough) story from the American Phytopathological Society. It’s even on the Federal Bioterrorism list for agricultural plant pathogens. Diversity might help there, if resistance can be found.

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Documenting Amazonian crop diversity

CODESU is the Consortium for Sustainable Development in Ucayali – an Amazonian department of Peru, with Pucallpa as its administrative centre. The consortium partners really recognize the importance of agricultural biodiversity in their development efforts – perhaps an unusual situation. The latest evidence of this committment is the germplasm catalog that has just gone online. It has information on cassava, peppers, beans and maize. There are other interesting resources on the website, including publications, though mainly in Spanish. You can read more about the efforts of CODESU in the management of crop diversity in traditional agroecosystems, and place them in a wider context, in a recent Bioversity International publication of that title.

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Eat locally, profit globally

The celebrity chef who decides to source everything locally has become a bit of a stereotype among foodies the world over. Here’s one whose local is the continent of Australia. Actually, Vic Cherikoff is no newcomer to the game, and this Q&A recounts his long fascination with bush tucker and, increasingly, bush medicine.

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Stamp on biodiversity

Bilde June 29 will be the day to buy this new set of pollinator stamps — if you are in the US. They celebrate National Pollinator Week, and I guess they were agreed far too long ago to feature hives emptied by Colony Collapse Disorder. I really like the symbolism of the design: “The designs are arranged in two alternate blocks that fit together like interlocking puzzles. In one block, the pollinators form a central starburst. In the other, the flowers are arranged in the center.” For details of the animals and flowers, see this news report.

We’ve recently had some other philatelic news, a set of eight postage stamps celebrating banana biodiversity, but whereas I can simply steal the US image from its source, the banana ones need some work. While I’m about it, I thought it would be fun to make a digital stamp collection featuring agricultural biodiversity, and I found some corkers at the official sites for Slovenia, Botswana and elsewhere. But in order to do what I plan to do, I need lots of examples. Your mission: to send me links to stamps of agricultural biodiversity, wherever you may find them. Please.