- Cytological and Molecular Characterization of Homoeologous Group-1 Chromosomes in Hybrid Derivatives of a Durum Disomic Alien Addition Line. Getting tolerance to Fusarium head blight into durum wheat ain’t easy.
- Sustainable, low-input, warm-season, grass–legume grassland mixtures: mission (nearly) impossible? Apparently really difficult to find native North America legume forage species tolerant of both freezing and high temperatures, but people are looking. Gotta wonder if it’s a problem elsewhere too. Ethiopian highlands?
- Diversity of different farmer and modern wheat varieties cultivated in contrasting organic farming conditions in western Europe and implications for European seed and variety legislation. Strong selection for uniformity (for regulation) is not reflected in uniformity assessed on farm. And farmer varieties were good outside their region of origin.
- Glycaemic index of three Indian rice varieties. All three the same, high, GI. So, “There is an urgent need to study the GI of other commonly consumed rice varieties and to develop rice of a lower GI value”. Er, right.
- Glycemic indices of five varieties of dates in healthy and diabetic subjects. All five the same, low, GI and no difference in diabetics.
- Agricultural expansion and the fate of global conservation priorities. Conservation needs to think about agriculture.
- Which habitats of European importance depend on agricultural practices? 63 of them, mainly through grazing and mowing.
- Centennial olive trees as a reservoir of genetic diversity. Only about 10% of old trees matched current cultivars.
- Phenotypic Changes in Different Spinach Varieties Grown and Selected under Organic Conditions. There were phenotypic changes after just three seasons of selection, in one case resulting in a “new” variety.
- Open-Pollinated vs. Hybrid Maize Cultivars. Hybrids are not the only way to improve maize productivity, apparently.
- Plant breeding for harmony between agriculture and the environment. “Plant breeding can be a powerful tool to bring “harmony” between agriculture and the environment, but partnerships between plant breeders, ecologists, urban planners, and policy makers are needed to make this a reality.” I was just going to ask, why can’t we all just get along.
Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here. Even if you don’t use Mendeley, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the group and get stuff that way.
The `native North American legumes’ search has it all wrong from the start. Rule number one in managed pastures is not to use native species – they are hammered by native pests and diseases. For tropical pastures, use grasses from Africa (Andropogon, Panicum maximum, Brachiarias and lots more) in Latin America and Latin American legumes (Stylosanthes) in Australia. So Ethiopia would be a rational place to start (and would get over the emotional but wrong `local is best’ millstone round the neck of agricultural development.
And then there is the repeated `monoculture is wrong’ belief in the paper. Rather: `When the going gets tough, monocultures get going’. Evidenced by the severe drop-off of species going polewards or upwards or sideways into monospecific zones round water-bodies. The most important crop in the world, paddy rice, is grown in monoculture.