Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Chasing stuff down, because we can, sometimes results in (very mild) disappointment. When I read about an onion called “Lafort (sourced originally from the Wellbourne [sic] gene bank and regenerated by Irish Seed Savers,” we not only Nibbled it, I also dropped a note to Irish Seedsavers asking for the full story. I had hoped …
Continue reading “Lafort onion, and Wellesbourne, revisited”
Scientists at Warwick University’s Crop Centre have examined “96 of the world’s onion varieties” for resistance to basal rot (caused by the ubiquitous Fusarium oxysporum) and their ability to form close relationships with certain beneficial fungi. The press release doesn’t go into any detail, such as which varieties top the lists, or anything useful like …
Over at Vaviblog, Jeremy has a post explaining why Pavlovsk is not unique. Alas, it’s because it’s by no means the only genebank that’s in trouble. Wellesbourne and Brogdale, the UK’s national collections of vegetable and fruit diversity, have both been through the wringer lately. On October 1 Wellesbourne and the Genetic Resources Unit were …
Andrew has a question for the U. of Warwick, and will be writing a strongly worded letter to Britain’s new Prime Minister if he doesn’t get the right answer: Is the Genetic Resources Unit to be rehoused under the Department of Life Sciences in a new state of the art facility to increase storage capacity …
While lawyers and some scientists jump through hoops in their efforts to define — or at least describe — what they mean by “landrace” the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in Britain has quietly published the results of a project entitled “Vegetable landrace inventory of England and Wales”. ((Heads should roll for …