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Category: Nibbles

Little bits of link goodness not worth a whole post

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Nibbles: Forest seed collecting, Colombian maize, Türkiye & China genebanks, Community seedbank trifecta, Wheat breeding, Rice breeding, Bean INCREASE, WorldVeg regen, UK apples, Rangeland management

  1. How to collect forestry seeds.
  2. Whole bunch of new maize races collected in Colombia.
  3. The Türkiye national genebank in the news. Lots of collecting there. Though maybe not as much as in this genebank in China.
  4. But small communities need genebanks too. Here’s an example from Ghana. And another from India. And a final one from the Solomon Islands.
  5. Need to use the stuff in genebanks though. Here’s how they do it in the UK. And in Bangladesh. And in Europe with the INCREASE project, which has just won a prize for citizen science. And in Taiwan. Sort of citizen science too.
  6. Collecting apples in the UK. Funny, the canonical lost-British-apple story appears on the BBC in the autumn usually. Kinda citizen science.
  7. Or we could do in situ conservation, as in this South African example… Just kidding, we all know it’s not either/or. Right? Probably a good idea to collect seeds is what I’m saying. Could even do it through citizen science.
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Nibbles: SPAM2020, Pullman genebank, Svalbard, Olive plague, Rice diversity, Vanilla threat, Gum rockrose, VACS demand, AI double, Food & climate change

  1. The latest version of the SPAM global crop area distribution model is out. You can play with it here.
  2. Some bullet points on the USDA’s National Plant Germplasm System outpost in Pullman.
  3. Yes, the above references Svalbard, as does this piece on Spanish tomatoes.
  4. Pity we can’t put olives in Svalbard, but there’s a another way to protect olive diversity.
  5. A breakdown of rice colour diversity. A lot of this stuff will be in Svalbard, with any luck.
  6. Vanilla will also need attention.
  7. But gum rockrose seems to be taken care of, at least in Bulgaria. It’s what you make Holy Chrism with.
  8. So there’s bound to be demand for it, at least in some quarters. Unlike for other opportunity/orphan/neglected crops, but GAIN is on it.
  9. And if all else fails there’s always AI, be it to fight pests and diseases or find cool plants out in the jungle.
  10. Why does all this matter? Because of the climate F-word.
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Nibbles: Seed info, Potato 101, Coffee 101, Rice repatriation, Iraq genebank, Use or lose, Teff breeding, Micronutrients, Agrobiodiversity, Plant a Seed Kit, WorldVeg to Svalbard, Seed Health Units

  1. Eastern and Southern Africa Small-scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF) launches SEED GIST, a quarterly repository of seed literature.
  2. A fun romp through potato history.
  3. A fun romp through coffee history.
  4. Hong Kong gets some rice seeds back from the IRRI genebank.
  5. No doubt Iraq will get some seeds back from the ICARDA genebank soon.
  6. Genebanks are only the beginning though.
  7. Breeding teff in, wait for it, South Africa.
  8. The possible tradeoffs of an environmentally friendly diet.
  9. IIED on the value of agrobiodiversity. Includes an environmentally-friendly and/or nutritious diet.
  10. Slow Food’s Plant a Seed Kit is all about agrobiodiversity and healthy diets. What, though, no teff?
  11. WorldVeg knows all about seed kits, and safety duplication.
  12. Gotta make sure those seeds are healthy, though. Here’s how CGIAR does it.
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Nibbles: Seed video, Kew video, Indonesian cassava, Crop maps, Neglected crops, KEPHIS lab, Turkish genebank, Nepal rice, Polynesian sugarcane, Ancient beer, Garlic basics

  1. Nice video celebrating seeds.
  2. Nice old video about Kew Gardens.
  3. Tracing the origins of Indonesian cassava. No, it wasn’t introduced by Kew, but yes, colonialism was involved.
  4. Latest data on where crops are grown. Including cassava.
  5. Self Help Africa director turns on to neglected crops. Including cassava.
  6. New lab in Kenya for spreading clean crops around. Including cassava?
  7. Türkiye’s genebank in the news. No cassava.
  8. Nepalese rice gets a Welsh upgrade.
  9. Collecting sugarcane in French Polynesia to (eventually) support local booze industry.
  10. Long live the ancient booze bandwagon.
  11. Garlic 101.