Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

October 5, 2016October 5, 2016

A new dawn in Lebanon, and ICARDA

If you’re one of the lucky few who follow me on social media, you’ll know I was in Lebanon last week for the opening of the new ICARDA genebank. It was great to meet the dedicated team of Lebanese and Syrian staff who are re-establishing the active collection at Terbol in the Bekaa Valley, with material obtained from Svalbard late last year. And it was also great to be back in Lebanon after almost 25 years. Some things are still the same. But many have changed, and there’s hope in that.

September 27, 2016

Aurochs redux

A paper just out in Open Quaternary discusses “The Draft Genome of Extinct European Aurochs and its Implications for De-Extinction.” Not to boast about it, but we were onto that five years back.

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September 26, 2016September 26, 2016

Brainfood: SE Asia archaeobotany, Avocado cryo, Farm diversity & revenue, DOC cheese, Kenyan agrobiodiversity, Perennial pigeonpea, Algerian sheep diversity, Basil rankings, Wild sunflower

Rice, beans and trade crops on the early maritime Silk Route in Southeast Asia. At trade crossroads, crops had to audition for inclusion in the local menu.
Cryopreservation of somatic embryos for avocado germplasm conservation. Still needs work.
Soil fertility, crop biodiversity, and farmers’ revenues: Evidence from Italy. Diverse farms are more profitable, and can make up for poor soils.
Native and Non-Native Sheep Breed Differences in Canestrato Pugliese Cheese Quality: a Resource for a Sustainable Pastoral System. Traditional local cheese is better when made with milk from traditional local breeds.
Agrobiodiversity conservation enhances food security in subsistence-based farming systems of Eastern Kenya. But correlation is not causation.
Estimating demand for perennial pigeon pea in Malawi using choice experiments. It won’t be liked everywhere.
Genome-wide analysis highlights genetic dilution in Algerian sheep. Two of the 7 local breeds studied are in trouble due to uncontrolled breeding with a third, but may be doing better in neighbouring countries.
Multicriteria optimization to evaluate the performance of Ocimum basilicum L. varieties. Fancy maths allows you to pick the best basil variety out of 8.
The challenges of maintaining a collection of wild sunflower (Helianthus) species. Are many and varied…

September 22, 2016

Happy birthday, international agricultural research!

I may have missed a couple, but at least two international agricultural research centres have big birthday bashes this month: CIMMYT is 50 and CIP is 45. CIMMYT has marked the occasion with the release of a very comprehensive history of its early years, with lots of cool vintage photos.

September 21, 2016

Do you like pina colada?

Well, it could be in trouble…

“It’s fair to say that at this pace, the Caribbean is running out of coconuts,” said Compton Paul, coordinator of a regional coconut program at the Trinidad-based Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute.