The trouble with quinoa

“Worldwide Evaluation of Quinoa: Preliminary Results from Post International Year of Quinoa FAO Projects in 9 Countries.” The title sounded promising enough. At last, something scientifically worthwhile emerging from one of those international years. Nineteen sites, 21 genotypes, a few winners: well worth having. But have a look at the materials part of the materials …

Brainfood: Agricultural heritage, Unique maize, B4N, Flax core evaluation, Oca conservation, Ag expansion, Rose wild relative, Quinoa evaluation, Nepal seed systems, Amazonian domestication, Analysing germplasm data

Agricultural Heritage Systems: A Bridge between Urban and Rural Development. “…agricultural heritage systems can take full advantage of abundant funds…” Really? Multi cob-bearing popcorn (Puakzo) maize: a unique landrace of Mizoram, North East, India. Would be nice to know how unique globally. Enabled or disabled: Is the environment right for using biodiversity to improve nutrition? …

Nibbles: Botanical gardens, Glass flowers, Remarkable trees, Rhubarb history, Expensive pumpkin, Back to the future, Quinoa glut, Citrus greening biocontrol

All of BGCI’s ex situ surveys on one cool page. Have they re-modelled their website? Harvard’s glass flowers are totally cool. The world’s coolest trees. Rhubarb is cooler than you think. I’m not sure paying over a thousand pounds for a pumpkin seed is all that cool. Conventional breeding is cooler than genetic engineering. Cool …

Brainfood: Old chestnuts, Seed networks, Seed health, Soybean GWAS, Quinoa ABS, Taro breeding

Mapping the Genetic Diversity of Castanea sativa: Exploiting Spatial Analysis for Biogeography and Conservation Studies. Mapping genetic data is both fun and instructive. Effects of farmer social status and plant biocultural value on seed circulation networks in Vanuatu. Big Men control Important Plants. Diagnostics of Seed-Borne Plant Pathogens for Safe Introduction and Healthy Conservation of …