- Long-term effect of tillage, nitrogen fertilization and cover crops on soil organic carbon and total nitrogen content. No till is better than conservation tillage.
- Catalase is a key enzyme in seed recovery from ageing during priming. It sure is. Good to know.
- Sustainable agriculture: A case study of a small Lopez Island farm. The authors conclude: “the need for future targeted nutrient inputs cannot be ruled out for sustainable long-term production”.
- Evolution of the knowledge system for agricultural development in the Yaqui Valley, Sonora, Mexico. They’re innovative, and diversity promotes agility.
- Changes in phenolic compounds in garlic (Allium sativum L.) owing to the cultivar and location of growth. Don’t hold your breath; only 10 varieties.
- Morpho-physiological and nutritional characterization of rice bean (Vigna umbellata). Now that’s what I call science; 30 varieties.
- Rural livestock asset portfolio in northern Ethiopia: a microeconomic analysis of choice and accumulation. Many, many factors come into play.
- Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.)-based strip intercropping: I. Interspecific interactions and yield advantage. Almost every intercrop improves yield and bottom line.
- Should payments for biodiversity conservation be based on action or results? A model says: “It depends.”
Brainfood: Bean diversity, Rice domestication, Microbial interactions squared, Threat of extinction, Agroforestry, Species diversity
- Population structure and genetic differentiation among the USDA common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) core collection. Subpopulations detected within usual Middle American and Andean genepools. The former was more diverse. Diversity was lower for domestication loci. One wonders whether game worth candle.
- Artificial selection for a green revolution gene during japonica rice domestication. There’s nothing new under the sun. Fuller fills us in.
- Positive plant microbial interactions in perennial ryegrass dairy pasture systems. Plant-microbe interactions can have significant positive impact on production of, and chemical inputs into and losses from, perennial ryegrass dairy pasture systems. Gotta love that agrobiodiversity.
- Plant growth promoting potential of Pontibacter niistensis in cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.). And another one. New bacterium from Western Ghats fertilizes soil and helps cowpea to grow.
- Extinction risk and diversification are linked in a plant biodiversity hotspot. That would the Cape. Extinction threat (IUCN categories) is better explained by phylogeny than by human activity or plant traits. Go figure.
- The framework tree species approach to conserve medicinal trees in Uganda. Sort of like artificial keystone species. Lots of other cool stuff in the same issue of Agroforestry Systems.
- Use of topographic variability for assessing plant diversity in agricultural landscapes. By and large, more environmental variability means more plant diversity, in Switzerland. Maybe some crop wild relatives in there?
Brainfood: Baby’s veggies, Chickpea and drought, Vine cactus breeding, Paleolithic rabbits, California protected areas, Wild pigeonpea, Pecorino classification, Milk composition, Phenotyping, Wild peas
- Vegetables by Stealth: an exploratory study investigating the introduction of vegetables in the weaning period. Sneaking them into the diet is the most common strategy used by mothers to introduce their kids to vegetables. Reeeeeally?
- Assessment of Iranian chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) germplasms for drought tolerance. Four out of 150 local landraces showed promise. It really is a numbers game, isn’t it?
- In situ induction of chromosome doubling in vine cacti (Cactaceae). Potentially valuable autopolyploids were produced. Not that it was easy or anything.
- Who brought in the rabbits? Taphonomical analysis of Mousterian and Solutrean leporid accumulations from Gruta Do Caldeirão (Tomar, Portugal). People did, that’s who, but only during the later Upper Paleolithic. Before that it was mainly owls.
- Protected areas in climate space: What will the future bring? Nothing good. Both novel and disappearing climates are over-represented in current protected areas, at least in California.
- Progress in the utilization of Cajanus platycarpus (Benth.) Maesen in pigeonpea improvement. Baby steps.
- Classification of pecorino cheeses using electronic nose combined with artificial neural network and comparison with GC-MS analysis of volatile compounds. Wait, there are different kinds of pecorino?
- The need for country specific composition data on milk. Well, you’ve got me convinced.
- Rate-distortion tradeoff to optimize high-throughput phenotyping systems. Application to X-ray images of seeds. So, let me get this straight, basically, gauging the optimal trade-off between speed and accuracy in high-throughput phenotyping systems depends on what you’re measuring? Who writes these grant applications?
- Experimental growing of wild pea in Israel and its bearing on Near Eastern plant domestication. First pea growers were either very patient or very quick workers.
Brainfood: Cabbages, Crops in Darfur, Sowing dates, People and biodiversity, Honeybees, Rhizobium, Figs, Urban ag, Wild olives, Ancient textiles, Ducks, Wheat introgression, Food citizenship, Crop models, Trifolium, Variety choice
- Genetic diversity of Brassica oleracea var. capitata gene bank accessions assessed by AFLP. Czech genebank; subgroups reflected place of origin.
- Optimizing the cropping mix in North Darfur State, Sudan. A study of Umkdada district. “…the results of the model were different from the real practices of the farmers.” Oh dear. To improve the fit, schoolboys should work in the fields more. And crops should fetch more. The dismal science indeed.
- Climate-driven simulation of global crop sowing dates. Ok, this model works. You can predict sowing dates under rainfed conditions for various annual crops from climatic conditions. Not entirely sure why you would want to, though.
- Exploring some of the myths of land use change: Can rural to urban migration drive declines in biodiversity? Yes, counter-intuitively, at least in the forests of Mexico’s southwestern highlands. More from Conservation Magazine.
- Pollination services in the UK: How important are honeybees? Quite a bit, but maybe not as much as previously thought. It’s the wild bees, stupid!
- Genetic diversity and symbiotic effectiveness of rhizobia isolated from root nodules of Phaseolus vulgaris L. grown in soils of Iran. It is high, and it varies, respectively.
- Interspecific hybridization of fig (Ficus carica L.) and Ficus erecta Thunb., a source of Ceratocystis canker resistance. It’s a breakthrough!
- Exploring the diversity of urban and peri-urban agricultural systems in Sudano-Sahelian West Africa: An attempt towards a regional typology. There are 6 types. Not 5; not 7. On this one, the journey is more interesting than the destination.
- Variability of wild olives (Olea europaea subsp. europaea var. sylvestris) analyzed by agro-morphological traits and SSR markers. There’s a lot of variabzzzzzzzzzz…
- Hemp in ancient rope and fabric from the Christmas Cave in Israel: Talmudic background and DNA sequence identification. Mainly flax, but some hemp, from both Roman and Chalcolithic periods. But can you smoke it?
- Modelling the distribution of domestic ducks in Monsoon Asia. Low resolution data, plus fancy modelling, can be used to get pretty good high resolution predictions.
- Gene flow between wheat and wild relatives: empirical evidence from Aegilops geniculata, Ae. neglecta and Ae. triuncialis. It happens, a lot.
- Toward food system sustainability through school food system change: Think&EatGreen@School and the making of a community-university research alliance. Food citizenship?
- Simulation of winter wheat yield and its variability in different climates of Europe: A comparison of eight crop growth models. Big differences among models, so best thing to do is to use the mean of all of them.
- The potential of plant viruses to promote genotypic diversity via genotype × environment interactions. The negative effect of White Clover Mosaic Virus (WCMV) infection on performance differs from white clover genotype to genotypes, which means differential selection, which means negative frequency-dependent selection in host populations, which means diversity. Via.
- Amplifying the benefits of agroecology by using the right cultivars. Why should we summarize, when an author has already done so?
Brainfood: Introgression, Sorghum and drought, Rice and drought, Carrot evaluation, Wheat breeding, Legume conservation, Wild Tibet soybean, Gezira, Biochar, CA, Grass ecotypes and climate, Organic ag and nutrients
- Alien introgressions represent a rich source of genes for crop improvement. Polyploids such as wheat do it best.
- Characterization of sorghum genotypes for traits related to drought tolerance. There is diversity within the “association panel” of diverse germplasm used. What I want to know is how that is different from a core or mini-core collection.
- Rice near-isogenic-lines (NILs) contrasting for grain yield under lowland drought stress. Small genetic differences can lead to big differences in yield under drought stress. What I want to know is whether doing this on NILs is better value for money than doing it on association panels of germplasm (see above), whatever they may be.
- Towards better tasting and more nutritious carrots: Carotenoid and sugar content variation in carrot genetic resources. European accessions sweeter and more orange than Asian.
- Changes in duration of developmental phases of durum wheat caused by breeding in Spain and Italy during the 20th century and its impact on yield. Fascinating unpicking of just where the genetic changes have their impact.
- Legume genetic resources: management, diversity assessment, and utilization in crop improvement. A lot of characterization, not enough evaluation. Core collections useful, but not useful enough. Crop wild relatives being used, but not enough. Good plug for the importance of geo-referencing.
- Genetic diversity and geographical peculiarity of Tibetan wild soybean (Glycine soja). Low and high, respectively.
- Analysis of agricultural production instability in the Gezira Scheme. Went up for wheat, cotton and sorghum, down for groundnuts, on liberalization.
- Biochar effects on soil biota – A review. It’s complicated but, on the whole, not unpositive.
- A research agenda to explore the role of conservation agriculture in African smallholder farming systems. Basically, it is likely to work least well in marginal conditions. Which is kinda surprising, and not, at the same time.
- Ecotypes of European grass species respond differently to warming and extreme drought. Yeah, but, alas, not in the way one might have wished.
- Comparison of nutritional quality of the crops grown in an organic and conventional fertilized soil. Maybe lower nitrate and N, higher P in organic crops. But really too much variation to be sure.