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Pssst! Wanna pollinate pumpkins?

I was cleaning out a mailbox the other day, and came across a message from Karl Haro von Mogel, who is quite well known around these parts. He was advising me that his new pollination video — on Cucurbits — had just been uploaded to YouTube. And I forgot to write about it. Apologies to Karl, but I’ll make it up in a minute.

The video is clearly aimed at the more industrial end of the spectrum. Bringing parent plants into a greenhouse was never an option for me. On the other hand, wandering through the pumpkin patch soon after dawn to gather ripe male flowers that had not quite opened was one of the great treats of saving my own seeds. And Karl deals with more than just controlled pollination. The first 3 1/2 minutes gives a good overview of cucurbit diversity, centres of origin and wild relatives. And near the end he reveals the secrets of the seedless watermelon. All in all, well worth 10 minutes of your life, even if you plan never to pollinate a pumpkin.

In his email Karl mentioned that he had entered the video for a competition at Chlorofilms. It was one of 17 2nd prize winners. So were some of his other films, including this one on pepper breeding.

Maybe if we could rustle up “at least $8000” in prize money we’d get some entries to our own competitions. Or maybe we should just enter the next Chlorofilms competition, if and when it happens.

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Silphium rediscovered?

Luigi dug up this great article — Devil’s Dung: The World’s Smelliest Spice — which reveals more about asafoetida than you could possibly ever have wanted to know. Lord but it is strange stuff to cook with, and yet I do like what it does for a dish. But I digress. Buried in a sidebar near the bottom of the page is a claim, complete with coy question mark, that silphium, most prized spice of ancient Rome, might be alive and well. The article recounts the history of silphium, and how it was believed to have gone extinct by the 1st century CE, so I won’t repeat that here. It also mentions the possibility that Cachrys ferulacea and ancient silphium are one and the same. 1 Personally, I have no idea, and I’m not even sure I know how one would know, but I’m intrigued. Thanks Luigi.

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Rainbow sweetcorn not so sweet

Patrick at Bifurcated Carrots reports on his experiment this year growing Painted Hills sweetcorn. to summarise, the plants weren’t very robust, the yield was poor, and the kernels weren’t all that sweet. (Perhaps he should try Red Miracle next year.) On the plus side:

Wow! Multi-colored sweet corn! Can you believe it? A variation of the famous Painted Mountain corn! Perfectly edible. Truly a visual delight, if not a tasty one.

Pat admits that it needs more work to thrive under his conditions, and that he’s not about to take that on, which is fair enough. Maybe someone else will rise to the challenge.

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Agricultural biodiversity and universities

Our friends and colleagues at Bioversity International have just published a 4-page briefing on Learning Agrobiodiversity: The importance of agricultural biodiversity and the role of universities. 2 It gives an admirable summary of what agricultural biodiversity is, what it is good for, and what is happening to it. The main thrust, though, is to present the results of surveys of how agrobiodiversity features in university curricula.

Bottom line: not so well.

If you know of any courses that the authors may have missed, we’ll be happy to pass on any information. And if you’re moved to organize a course and are looking for guest lecturers, we can probably help there too.

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Featured: Organic GMOs

Anastasia has a dream:

I’d like to see some transgenic plants that simply resist fungal infection, but that’s not organic – even though it would reduce or eliminate the need for chemical sprays.