Jeremy

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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Yuri Vavilov remembers his father

December 3, 2010

The BBC World Service’s Outlook programme yesterday broadcast an interview with Yuri Nikolaievich Vavilov. He spoke movingly about his father’s globetrotting ways, the importance of education, and of how he slowly came to to know the truth about his father’s fate. I’m not sure how long the programme remains available at the BBC website, but [...]

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Pavlovsk’s cherries

November 17, 2010

The parties arguing about the future of Pavlovsk Experiment Station have disagreed over the state of the collection. Inspections claimed that parts of the collection were neglected and in disarray. The researchers at Pavlovsk are now beginning to respond with their own view of the collections in their care. First to report are Dr A. [...]

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Pavlovsk’s potato problems

October 10, 2010

A paper published earlier this year used the historic potato collections assembled at the Pavlvosk Experiment Station to shed light on the confused and confusing taxonomy of potatoes. The good news is that the conclusions of the paper “are very similar to other recent studies of cultivated species, and show the need to reclassify the [...]

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The Vavilov Institute responds to the Expert Commission

October 6, 2010

The NI Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) has responded in some detail to the report of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Expert Commission appointed by the Russian Ministry of Economic Development to look into the state of Pavlovsk Experiment Station. The response makes many points and asks many questions, in between heaping fulsome [...]

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Pavlovsk is not unique

October 3, 2010

Continuing my efforts to set the record straight on Pavlovsk Experiment Station, today the question of just how unique the collections are. In one sense, the crop diversity held at Pavlovsk certainly is unique. Many of the accessions, perhaps as much as 90%, are not held in any other genebanks. That alone makes the collection [...]

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Pavlovsk: the expert commission reports

September 29, 2010

Thanks to some fantastic global support, over at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog is the news that the Expert Commission appointed to look into the collections at the Pavlovsk Experiment Station has stated that the collections are extremely valuable, are not in the best shape, need care and attention, and may be better off under new [...]

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My perennial pea

September 29, 2010

Compadre Luigi found a report of what he called a “kinda weird in situ-ex situ CWR conservation hybrid”. It concerns a member of the Pea family called Vavilovia formosa, or “Beautiful vavilovia”. The point of the report is that this endangered wild relative of the pea has been conserved as part of a Flora and [...]

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