- Cynthia gives us her personal history with apple diversity, and the history of Tarte Tatin; yum!
- Farmers in Koraput, India, recognized as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS).
- Ugandan farmers who select one of four new groundnut varieties increase incomes. Good to know. What happens to the old varieties?
Featured: Transhumance
Irish researcher Theresa McDonald has a request:
I am currently researching transhumance in the West of Ireland and would appreciate any information, photographs of this practice in the Mediterranean region of Europe. I am familiar with the Vlach shepherds of Greece and hope to visit the Pindus Mountains sometime in the future.
Can you help her?
Predictions for 2012: maize will be affected by climate
I predict that we (using the term in its widest possible sense) will understand the links between growing conditions and yield much more deeply. In particular, how changes in a plant’s environment will affect its output.
This is based on Heat, Humidity and Crop Yields, a post by Michael J Roberts, who has an economist’s ability to build complex models that explain some things rather well. The latest looks at how much better predictions of yield are when vapour pressure deficit is added to the model. As Roberts explains:
Vapor pressure deficit, a close cousin to relative humidity, has a linear relationship with evaporation, and is a key input in many crop models.
The point is that VPD is not that easy to measure, but that if you manage to do so, it is very handy.
There are two interesting things about the VPD measure we construct. First, average VPD for July and August is closely associated with our best-fitting extreme heat measure, at least in Illinois. Second, adding VPD for the season and VPD for July and August to our standard regression greatly improves prediction. Using just five variables, these two plus growing degree days (degree days between 10C and 29C), extreme heat degree days (degree days above 29C) and precipitation, we can explain over 70 percent of the variance of Illinois yields, excluding the upward trend. That’s better than USDA’s August and September forecasts, which are based on field-level samples and farmer interviews. The model can explain almost half the difference between the August forecast and the final yield for Illinois.
OK, so it is only in Illinois. And only for maize. But it might yet end up improving crop prediction models more generally.
This would appear to be post No. 5000. That it deals not with agrobiodiversity but with the effects of climate change on a single species, and probably very few varieties of that species, seems rather fitting.
Leftovers: Coconuts, Genebank, Vegetables, Famine, Danish, Bissap, Brazil nuts, Dates, Papas y mas, Fruit, Rice, Everything
We found these nibbles at the back of the fridge, and they’re not too mouldy, so lets fry them up before we get anything fresh.
- Boss of India’s agricultural research exhorts international coconut genebank to do more and be heard.
- And, first out of the gate for 2012, Nepal says it will create a new genebank for plants “on the verge of extinction”.
- Immigrant urban agriculture — in Cleveland, Ohio.
- Aid man Edward Carr interviewed: “drought does not equal famine”
- Meetings on “biodiversity” in Europe, under the Danish presidency. Indigestible?
- Hibiscus tea, what a tonic.
- Resources Research goes crazed for book about brazil nuts, and other Amazonian agrobiodiversity.
- A cure for Bayoud disease of dates? And it’s based on medicinal plants!
- Pueblos andinos reciben ejemplares de tubérculos nativos. Otra vez?
- Guerilla grafting? Now there’s an idea for “covert agriculture”. Wonder what the graftees think.
- “The giant panda of the botanical world”? Blimey. A new reserve for real wild rice.
- Huge Satoyama-style paper from Bioversity on THE USE OF AGROBIODIVERSITY BY INDIGENOUS AND TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURAL COMMUNITIES IN: ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE And they’re the ones doing the shouting.
A belated merry berry go round
While we were away, the resourceful Nicole at The Roaming Naturalist was busy compiling a bunch of botanical blog posts into the latest Berry go Round carnival. And a fascinating bunch it is too, not least, from our particular point of view, for the extensive explanation of tomato pollination.
Thanks equally to those who hosted BGR in 2011 and to those who submitted posts, their own or someone else’s. First up hosting in 2012 will be Moss Plants and More.
Volunteers for subsequent months most welcome, and as Nicole will tell you, it is actually both fun and rewarding.