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Yet another new wild banana

Musa velutina subsp. markkuana (photo taken by Markku Häkkinen in Calicut, India)
Musa velutina subsp. markkuana (photo taken by Markku Häkkinen in Calicut, India)
In the latest installment of our never-ending quest to keep you up to date with banana taxonomy, and bring you photos of beautiful crop wild relatives at the same time, meet Musa velutina subsp. markkuana , a just-published new subspecies from northeastern India. If that subspecific name sounds kinda familiar, it’s because you may have read about former sea captain and current Musa taxonomist extraordinaire Markku Häkkinen here before.

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The grapevines of Pompeii

Sign explaining the story behind a vineyard planted in the ruins of Pompeii
Sign explaining the story behind one of several vineyards planted among the ruins of Pompeii
Although I knew that grapevines were cultivated in Roman times in and around Pompeii, I had no idea, until I visited the place for the first time in decades last week, that they’re there again, and in force. Various varieties apparently dating back to the time of the eruption that destroyed the city in AD 79 were planted in the late 1990s, more or less where they were originally grown.

According to Mastroberardino, wine played a central role in the lives of the Vesuvian people. Archaeological excavations, botanical studies, and the discovery of casts of vine roots and their support stakes have confirmed that vines were grown within ancient Pompeii’s city walls, in the gardens and orchards which beautified villas, and especially in the quarters located on the outskirts of the city, near the amphitheatre.

Pompeii vineyard
Pompeii vineyard
And they seem to be doing very well, though you perhaps wouldn’t know it from my photos taken in early April. Fortunately, the internet can help with that.

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Featured: Svalbard from the horse’s mouth

Cary Fowler clarifies matters:

Just to be clear, Svalbard does NOT impose SMTA requirements on countries that deposit. (Cases in point: the 69,000+ samples deposited by the U.S. and the 2,000+ deposited by the Seed Savers Exchange, an NGO.)

Treaty Parties and non-Parties alike are making use of the Seed Vault and use by non-Parties does not change the legal status of those deposits at all.

You can believe that if you want to.

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Food composition training materials planned

Are you working in a university which includes or is intending to include a course on food composition in its curriculum? well, if so, you might be interested in this recent announcement from INFOODS coordinator Ruth Charrondiere on FAO’s nutrition listserv.

I am pleased to announce that FAO/INFOODS is developing an e-learning course on food composition which is intended mainly for universities to easily incorporate food composition into their curricula. It will also be useful for self-learners and food composition courses. The e-learning course will supplement the FAO/INFOODS Food Composition Study Guide and its accompanying 12 PowerPoint Presentations (see http://www.fao.org/infoods/infoods/training/en/). It will be available in English. You will be able to download it free-of-charge from the INFOODS website and receive it on CD. We intend to launch it at the 10th IFDC in Granada.

So now you have no excuse for not documenting food composition data at the crop variety level.

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Featured: Leafy greens

Jeanne Osnas is not content to rest on her leaf-eating laurels:

I would love to know more about the plant species composition of regional diets around the globe. It would be amazing to put this information into a “master greens tree,” so we can evaluate the relative contributions to the greens tree of cultural history of plant use and the organismal and evolutionary biology of the plants themselves.

There has to be a way to make this a crowd-sourced effort …