Jeremy

To grow bananas from date seeds

April 28, 2011

A chance remark on a friend’s blog prompted me to try and pick up a trail that had gone quite cold. Her friend was remarking that “the dates groves that flourish in Mexico’s Baja California oases were first planted by the Jesuit missionaries with seeds from North Africa”. Vavilov’s contact in Algeria, Louis Trabut, is [...]

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Vavilov Institute publishes meeting summary and policy statement

April 14, 2011

The N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) recently published a summary of the two-day meeting on the nutritional value of the berry fruits in the VIR’s collection at Pavlovsk and a policy statement by the International Working Group. Has there been any response from the authorities?

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Russia’s promises to the world, Part 2

April 6, 2011

A second wonderful statement, this time from Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, delivered to the World Grain Forum in St Petersburg in June 2009. “…To finish my introductory speech, I would like to emphasize the absolute importance of research in crop science. Therefore, it is utterly not by accident that this forum is held in St [...]

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Russia’s promises to the world, Part 1

April 5, 2011

The Director of the Vavilov Institute, Nikolay Dzyubenko, reminded participants at last week’s berry meeting that the Russian Federation had made firm commitments to share its genetic resources with the world. He mentioned two recent statements by political leaders, and thanks to the good offices of Sergey Alexanian, Vice Director for International Relations at the [...]

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The virtues of fruit diversity: a price far above rubies

March 31, 2011

A second round-up of events today at the meeting about the crop diversity collections of the Pavlovsk Experiment Station, which are threatened with destruction for housing The second day of the meeting was a chance for the project team to provide some context for their work of the past 3 years, for an audience which [...]

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More pictures from Pavlovsk meeting

March 31, 2011

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Nutritional analysis of Pavlovsk samples bears fruit

March 30, 2011

This just in from Our Man on Nevsky Prospekt with the thermal underwear and the Kevlar vest. Do 4,700 berry plants, belonging to 542 species, 165 genera and 48 families have a value that is greater than what you’d pay for the land they’re sitting on? The question may not be stated so boldly in [...]

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Image smuggled from “secret” meeting

March 30, 2011

This photo was smuggled from a meeting being held in a secure bunker under conditions of utmost secrecy. It shows Sergey Alexanian, Vice Director for International Relations at the Vavilov Institute (left) and Pablo Eyzaguirre, Senior Scientist at Bioversity International. Extensive research reveals that they may possibly have been discussing an Investigation of genetic diversity [...]

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Domestication of African rice

March 28, 2011

Is this thing still on? Excellent. A big meeting is scheduled for next week in St Petersburg, Russia, to consider new discoveries about some of the holdings at the Pavlovsk Experiment Station and, perhaps, the station’s future, so it seemed like a good idea to make sure that this site was up and running and [...]

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arte TV reports on pavlovsk

January 4, 2011

Perhaps because they didn’t see fit to name the Pavlovsk Experiment Station, I missed this very thorough and moving report from arte TV. My French isn’t what it ought to be, so I would welcome your views. It is also available in German, I believe. Thanks to the Global Crop Diversity Trust for sharing.

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