Drink coffee, feed the world?

As I sat bleary-eyed in the staff restaurant at CABI drinking a morning cup of coffee today, was I simply having a shot of caffeine to keep me going after an early start. Or, as it was Fairtrade coffee I was drinking, was I making a real contribution to improved livelihoods of small farmers in…
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Thai rubber industry plans to bounce back from El Niño

El Niño, the ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that does so much to shape the course of the world’s weather, is now giving officials in Thailand particular cause for concern. The Meteorological Department in Bangkok has announced that the cool, dry season has lasted an unusually long time, beyond its normal November to January range. The worry is…
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Seeds of Doom

When I first heard about the Svalbard International Seed Vault or "Doomsday" seed bank, I felt quite alarmed. Why was it being built into the side of a freezing Arctic mountain hundreds of miles from anywhere? Was some great catastrophe about to hit the earth and obliterate all forms of life? However, it seems that…
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Can weeds be our friends?

A recent post on the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog by Luigi set me thinking (ouch!) about water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), weeds in general and the useful things it’s possible to do with them. Luigi tells us about a magazine rack that he bought in Nairobi that was made from fibres of the invasive aquatic weed. It’s…
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Whitefly and Virus Team Tactics

The notorius ‘B’-biotype whitefly, Bemisia tabaci, can act as a vector for viruses, transmitting them between plants as it feeds. Nothing new there? Yes actually, in an interesting twist, researchers at Zhejiang University, China have found that certain viruses repay the favour by increasing whitefly performance on the infected plant. Comparisons of B whitefly fecundity…
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Successful seed storage

For all you keen gardeners looking for novel ways to preserve your seed harvest this year, there’s no need to worry about not having special cryopreservation equipment or a ready supply of liquid nitrogen.  You can draw on the wisdom of indigenous cultures for some methods to extend storage life.  Take a look at the…
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Trees for flights?

It’s been difficult to avoid the current debate about carbon offsetting in the news recently and one topic that comes up again and again is planting trees. In a world where people are flying shorter distances more frequently can we really make up for this by planting a few trees here and there? A number…
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Dangerous rust puts strain on food security

Back in the 1950s, North America saw 40% of the continent’s spring wheat crop lost to stem rust fungus infections. In the late 80s, yellow rust went on a rampage across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia causing crop losses worth over 1 billion US Dollars. In 2007 and beyond, the world could…
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A Whiter Shade of Pale found in Chrysanthemums

Chrysanthemums may appear fairly uninteresting compared to the many exotics of the plant world, but recent research proves they really are fascinating. As the world’s most important ornamental flower, it is thought that today’s modern varieties originated from white and yellow flowered plants. Crosses showed that white petal colour is dominant over yellow and it…
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What do trees wear when it gets cold? Fir coats!

What’s going on here then? Is it the arrival of a sentient machine from another planet, interfacing with the local plant-life for purposes unknown? I’m afraid not, contact with ET will have to wait. What we have here is a new technique, pioneered by the USDA Forest Service, for measuring the below-ground sequestration of carbon…
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