Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
After Pavlovsk and Brogdale, it is now the turn of a French fruit genebank to feel the heat. According to Declan Butler’s somewhat breathless piece in Nature: Uncertainty hangs over one of the world’s largest and most important grapevine collections. The Domaine de Vassal vineyard, on France’s Mediterranean coast, houses a vast sweep of grape …
Is there a Pavlovsk situation brewing in Lima? ((For new readers, The Pavlovsk Experiment Station, outside St Petersburg, was established by NI Vavilov to house parts of the massive collection of agricultural biodiversity his institute amassed. It has been under threat from developers and politicians for more than 3 years now, and it’s future is …
The latest issue of Plant Breeding Matters, the organ of the British Society of Plant Breeders, focuses on genebanks around the UK. In particular, the ones at the John Innes Centre and Kew, but the accompanying map hints at further treasures. We have mentioned a couple of these other genebanks before (Brogdale, Warwick), more often …
The famous British apple collection at Brogdale in Kent, which has been through some vicissitudes this past year, and could do with some good news, is being replanted, and the BBC has a video. Incidentally, I recently learned that the composer Gerald Finzi assembled a selection of heirloom varieties at his country house, Church Farm, …
A funny thing happened to Dave Arnold on his globe-trotting effort to sample the apples of the world: he got waylaid by the pears. What happened next is the subject of a truly wonderful blog post that highlights his enthusiasm and ability to convey subtleties of the eating experience. Not bad for a chap who …