- Norwich boffins save the world. To get the real story, you need to deconstruct the piece using this.
- “Results indicate that the greatest agriculture-led growth opportunities in West Africa reside in staple crops (cereals and roots and tubers) and livestock production.” Minor crops get the shaft again?
- Project tackles conservation of Asian farm animal diversity. I’ve always wondered whether there might be a role for ecotourism. I’d pay to see weird cocks. And hens.
- Pakistani boffins return home with skills to improve wheat P efficiency. And the resources? We shall see.
- Chinese food and plant semiotics. Can’t wait for LanguageLog to get to grips with this.
- NordGen characterizes a weirdly-named exotic Cinderella crop. Can you guess which?
- And can you guess what the “best kept secret of agricultural success” might be? Clue: nothing to do with those East Anglian boffins of the first item.
- Participatory plant breeding and gender analysis. They’re not giving much away at the source site.
Brainfood: Ag vs biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Genomic association, Diversity and productivity in forests, Increasing diversity
- Land, Food, and Biodiversity. Agriculture will expand, but that is bad for biodiversity. It probably must expand, actually, but this can be kept to a minimum by addressing land-use planning, governance and law enforcement, productivity, and market drivers. Oil palm as an example.
- Time to change how we describe biodiversity. By finally tackling the digitization of phenome annotations, apparently. NiM 1
- Genomic and metabolic prediction of complex heterotic traits in hybrid maize. Amazingly, genotype (SNP) can predict phenotype (biomass traits) pretty well. But in a population where a bunch of dents were crossed with a couple of testers. Will it work with a diverse genebank collection of landraces?
- Forest productivity increases with evenness, species richness and trait variation: a global meta-analysis. In over 50 studies, polycultures come out about 24% better than monocultures, with evenness having more of an effect than richness. Much more commentary and context at ConservationBytes.com. Compare with that recent drylands diversity and ecosystem function paper.
- All Is Not Loss: Plant Biodiversity in the Anthropocene. A model says there have been “gains in exotics caused by species invasions and the introduction of agricultural domesticates and ornamental exotic plants”. Oooh! Contrarian!
European Botanic Gardens Congress calling for papers one last time
But you’ve only got a few more days! The Congress itself will be in late May on the island of Chios. Word around the campfire has it that Nigel Maxted will be putting together a workshop on “Wild Species Conservation in Genetic Reserves.”
Celebrating the donkey
It looks like the biennial Donkey and Mule Conference, usually held on the Greek island of Hydra, will take place in London this year, appropriately enough during International Donkey Week in May. So Prof. William Gervase Clarence-Smith of the School of Oriental and African Studies and Ed Emery, the conference organizer, inform DAD-Net anyway. I coudn’t find a website, but the last livestock-themed SOSA conference even had a Facebook page, so there must be one in the offing.
A sheep at the wheel
The discussion of transhumance going on in the comments to an old post, and in particular Jacob’s link to a recent sheepish demonstration in Madrid, reminded me of this reminiscence from the BBC’s long-time Rome correspondent, David Willey.
One of my most vivid memories of 1957 was getting up early one Sunday morning and seeing a shepherd leading his flock of several hundred sheep down the Via del Corso, along the main street that bisects the heart of the ancient city.
Too bad Mr Willey didn’t have his Brownie ready…