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National Public Radio reports on Pavlovsk

It is very refreshing to see some real reporting on the situation around Pavlovsk Experiment Station. National Public Radio in the US today airs a story by reporter David Greene that goes a little beyond the recycling we have seen so much of. He explains, for example, how the gardens at Pavlovsk can look abandoned and yet remain vitally important. He also talks to scientists and locals.

One thing I don’t get. Greene writes:

Barring action by the Kremlin, the first land auction could take place as soon as Sept. 23.

But when will we know the results of either the scrutiny ordered by President Medvedev or the appeal to the Supreme Arbitration Court?

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Cloning wins, kinda

Biodiversity? We don’t need no stinkin’ biodiversity.

A cloned steer has won the same prize it (in a manner of speaking) won two years ago. At least it says something about judges’s consistency, except, of course, that they knew. Susan Schneider at the Agricultural Law blog examines the case from all angles, and comes up unhappy.

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Scientists barred from Pavlovsk Experiment Station

A report from the Russian press agency Novosti suggests that the Housing Corporation that has been granted the land occupied by the Pavlovsk collection of the N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR), pending a further court appeal, has banned scientists from working on the collection.

According to the report, Nikita Stepanov, director of the housing fund’s local branch, wrote to Fyodor Mikhovich, the Pavlovsk Experiment Station’s director:

“He has sent me a letter, in which he prohibits the Pavlovsk station and me, the director, to appear at our collection of fruit and berries, saying this is their property and I must stay away from it,” the station’s acting director Fyodor Mikhovich said.

He said Stepanov accused him of “violating the property rights.”

I suppose keeping the scientists away could lend some truth to the outrageous claim that the land is idle. We know no more.

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Featured: Black Rice

Penny has an intriguing idea about black rice:

“Dr Xu says he’d like to see Louisiana farmers growing black rice.”

Or, we could just buy it from the countries where it is indigenous to. That way, the farmers who actually developed it would benefit from producing it.

She has reasons, too, good ones.