Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
We have heard, almost too late but not quite, that
Noel Vietmeyer, author of ‘Our Daily Bread: The Essential Norman Borlaug’, is generously offering his book for free during this week through Amazon.com. The hardcover version costs $27, but through October 5 he is making the e-book version available for free.
Hurry, hurry.
You know that horrible feeling when you realize you’ve used the wrong apple variety? Well, you need never have it again, not with this handy new flowchart from Slate.
Now, if they could only do something similar for another important multi-purpose crop…
It’s conference season in India, I guess. With the XI Conference of the Parties of the CBD off the ground, that makes two major global talk-fests happening in Hyderabad this week. And we’re just sitting here waiting for you to tell us what’s going down.
And off we go with the VIth International Conference on Legume Genetics and Genomics! Or rather, off you go, because we’re stuck here. If anything wildly exciting happens, let us know about it.
LATER: I’ve just been called a legume chauvinist pig for plugging the above genomics conference and not the equivalent Rosaceae one. All righty then, here it is.
LATER STILL: Finally, a hashtag!
2nd day of the 6th International Conference on Legume Genetics and Genomics #VI_ICLGGHYD
— ICRISAT (@ICRISAT) October 3, 2012
Cindy Cox, one of the authors of the article described in a recent IFPRI article, encourages us to look beyond groundnuts, and trees, in thinking about perenniation.
I admit the first thing I saw in the IFPRI article was the picture and caption and I immediately slapped my forehead (groundnuts, perennials? doh!). Also, it is a shame that most readers seem to stop at trees and think this is yet another agroforestry article. There are indeed three perenniation strategies presented in the article, only one of which includes trees. Yes, trees use water but if you look at the picture in the article, the tree roots are busting their way through a hard soil layer to access resources that the maize roots would never have on their own. And there is no denying the significant increase in maize yields presented in this article due to perennials.
Good advice.