- Special issue of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences on food processing, “a critical variable in human economies and social and symbolic systems.” Looks like the editorial is open to all.
- Investigation of genetic diversity in Russian collections of raspberry and blue honeysuckle. Some of them are much richer than others.
- Solanum centrale, bush tucker: new microsatellites reveal diversity and polyploidy; and it benefits from arbuscular mycorrhiza, especially in low P soils.
- The Crop Intensification Program in Rwanda: a sustainability analysis. It isn’t.
- Wholesale replacement of lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus L.) landraces over the last 30 years in northeastern Campeche, Mexico. There was.
- Certification of agroforestry tree germplasm in Southern Africa: opportunities and challenges. Need a scheme based on the FAOs Quality Declared Seed (QDS) with truth-in-labelling, with 3 germplasm categories (audit, select and genetically improved) as a start.
- And speaking of trees … Silver fir stand productivity is enhanced when mixed with Norway spruce: evidence based on large-scale inventory data and a generic modelling approach. Diversity good for silver firs, no effect on Norway spruce.
- Genotypic variation and relationships between quality traits and trace elements in traditional and improved rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes. Traditional varieties have more.
A different substitute for coffee
Personally, I’m not much in favour of ersatz anything, but sometimes the short word is as good a signifier as anything. Vegetarian burgers, for example, tells you, very roughly, what you’re getting (not much). So too with various substitutes for coffee, many of which are promoted precisely because they are caffeine free. Coffee, in this case, I suppose means vaguely bitter, brown, hot beverage, possibly refreshing. Even before coming to Italy I had been aware of Caffé d’orzo, “coffee” made from ground, roasted barley (though not the extent of the marketing surrounding it). A fellow blogger, however, introduced me to a new Italian “coffee” that had been in danger of extinction and is now more widely available.
MikeH shares his discovery of Altrei coffee, made from Lupinus pilosus, grown by the villagers of Altrei near the Italian Alps. And as he says:
A nitrogen fixer with an amazing blue flower that gives us a coffee substitute. It doesn’t get much better than that. Even if the coffee doesn’t cut it, we still have a spectacular nitrogen fixer that the bees in the orchard will love.
In the interests of science I need to see whether I can find that coffee here in the city. And the SeedZoo that MikeH mentions might repay study for those of you looking for a little horticultural diversity for your plot (though I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t bemoan the lack of proper botanical names).
Featured: Genebank identifiers
Dag identifies a possible fly in the soothing ointment of DOI genebank identifiers as a link between data and accessions:
The second social obstacle, if people *want* to share their descriptive information is another issue.
Indeed it is.
Conferences want you
Two conferences have put out a call for papers.
First up is the 1st Africa College International Conference on Food security, Health and Impact Knowledge Brokering, to be held in Leeds, England, from 22-24 June 2011. Full details at the conference website. h/t the CAS-IP blog.
And then there’s IFPRI’s conference on Increasing Agricultural Productivity and Enhancing Food Security in Africa, organized in conjunction with the African Union Commission and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. It takes place in Addis Ababa 1-3 November 2011 and details are available via the IFPRI website.
Genebank data identifiers
Remember the big discussion about how to ensure that information about genebank accessions can be linked back to the accession itself? Our friend Dr Dag Endresen has written a handy guide to Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) as they might be used by genebanks. In addition to explaining how the system works, he points out that it might be a good idea for one organization to fork over the roughly USD1000 to register a top-level DOI name such as genesys. (Bioversity? The Trust? The Treaty? Is anyone listening?) That would not stop any other genebank flush with cash from registering their own domain, and it would provide something to the data providers at genebanks in return for their data. Dag discusses some other options on his blog, and I’m sure there’ll be lots of discussion there, or here, or some other place. Either way, the sooner some similar system is adopted, the sooner we can trace our collective way out of genebank database hell and satisfy the needs of those who want to link data to accessions.