- I know you’re just dying to see a Social Network Analysis of agricultural research in Malawi.
- Big cheeses say Economic growth alone won’t end hunger.
- Wendell Berry is taking a long-term view of the long-term land “emergency” in the US.
- The heck with food, say Oz ag wonks, let’s farm carbon.
- Hey, why doesn’t somebody do this for Berry go Round? (We’re way too busy.)
Brainfood: Spanish terraces, Flower patches, Population ecology, Maize germplasm use, Seed info system, Maize and CC, Medicago predation, Species richness prediction, Rice salt-tolerance
- The genesis of irrigated terraces in al-Andalus. A geoarchaeological perspective on intensive agriculture in semi-arid environments (Ricote, Murcia, Spain). They were built very early on, on a specific soil type, by first burning the vegetation and then essentially inverting the soil profile.
- Creating patches of native flowers facilitates crop pollination in large agricultural fields: mango as a case study. Sweet.
- The ecology of plant populations: their dynamics, interactions and evolution. A whole special issue. Most intriguing is perhaps review of plant-pollinator interactions on the Galapagos. All very important for in situ conservation of crop wild relatives.
- Diversity in global maize germplasm: Characterization and utilization. Three priorities: phenotyping, phenotyping, phenotyping.
- Phytotracker, an information management system for easy recording and tracking of plants, seeds and plasmids. They could have used GRIN-Global, but I guess that doesn’t track plasmids.
- Increasing influence of heat stress on French maize yields from the 1960s to the 2030s. Any day with maximum temperature above 32°C is bad, and their recent increase has led to yield stagnation. They are going to increase further, which means that the French are going to have to find a 12% increase in base yields by 2035 or eat less maize. Do they in fact eat any maize now? What countries are now like what France will be like in 2035?
- Combined impact of multiple exotic herbivores on different life stages of an endangered plant endemism, Medicago citrina. IUCN says it’s endangered. Rabbits, mice and rats are important parts of the problem.
- Estimating species richness: still a long way off!. Bummer.
- New allelic variants found in key rice salt-tolerance genes: an association study. A couple possibly interesting mutations identified by EcoTILLING bunch of IRRI accessions. We shall see if anything comes of them. Actually, how will we find out if something does? I hope the info will go back into the IRRI genebank documentation system.
Nibbles: AIRCA lives, Graft mangos, Breed forage, Discuss seed laws, Overfish
Apologies for the lack of service; we’re a bit all over the map.
- The Association of International Research and Development Centres for Agriculture (AIRCA) comes a step closer. Smallholder farmers rejoice.
- Side grafting and informal scion exchange for fun and profit. Smallholder mango farmers rejoice.
- Annals of botany highlights strategies for forage and grass improvement. Forage breeders and livestock rejoice.
- European NGOs discuss non-paper on revision to seed legislation. Eurocrats see no reason to rejoice.
- German development agency goes large on small fish stocks, with added political goodness. Fisherfolk see no reason to rejoice either.
Nibbles: SOWF, Pollinators, Bamboo, Policy, Cupuaçu, Salak, Pomegranate
- State of the World’s Forests 2012 is out. Save some trees by downloading the PDFs.
- More from FAO: Potential Effects of Climate Change on Crop Pollination. Stick that in your crop model.
- And then there’s climate change and bamboos — of interest to more than pandas?
- Bioversity policy wonks call for New strategies and partnerships for the sustainable use of plant genetic resources. What was wrong with the old ones?
- Kew says The taste of the Amazon is Cupuaçu. A name I recognized only because I recently spent half a lifetime on Wikipedia’s entry for Theobroma.
- Smithsonian says The taste of Indonesia is salak, a name I didn’t recognise even when told it is snakefruit. Or Salacca zalacca, a name to really conjure with.
- Cynthia says, the taste of love is pomegranate. Let us go to the vineyards to see …
Brainfood: Sierra Leone rice, Bean breeding, Cacao geographic diversity, Red fleshed apples, Species richness & productivity, African maize diversity, Human expansion, Barley gaps, Wild coffee and CC, Acacia and CC, Genetic erosion
- Analysis of genetic diversity in farmers’ rice varieties in Sierra Leone using morphological and AFLP markers. Still a lot of diversity in traditional rice after the war, both among and within landraces, mostly among, organized regionally, and recognized by local names.
- Simultaneous selection for resistance to five bacterial, fungal, and viral diseases in three Andean × Middle American inter-gene pool common bean populations. Thanks goodness for multiple independent domestication events. And genebanks.
- Present Spatial Diversity Patterns of Theobroma cacao L. in the Neotropics Reflect Genetic Differentiation in Pleistocene Refugia Followed by Human-Influenced Dispersal. So need to collect in areas at the margins or just outside the refugia if you want high diversity. But of course that may already be ex situ. But wait, didn’t you just do the analysis based on the provenance of ex situ holdings?
- An ancient duplication of apple MYB transcription factors is responsible for novel red fruit-flesh phenotypes. The whole genome got duplicated during evolution of the apple and the red flesh phenotype is controlled by loci in both copies, but in different ways.
- What is the form of the productivity–animal-species-richness relationship? A critical review and meta-analysis. Positive.
- Spatial Structure and Climatic Adaptation in African Maize Revealed by Surveying SNP Diversity in Relation to Global Breeding and Landrace Panels. Distinct Sahelian, Western and Eastern clusters. Some SNPs associated with high temperatures.
- MtDNA analysis of global populations support that major population expansions began before Neolithic Time. Humans needed good weather to thrive, not agriculture.
- Genetic gap analysis of wild Hordeum taxa. Argentina?
- The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Arabica Coffee (Coffea arabica): Predicting Future Trends and Identifying Priorities. Generally very bad to disastrous, but some “core localities” will be ok, and therefore could be used for in situ conservation. Interestingly, genebank accession locality data not used.
- The genus Acacia (Fabaceae) in East Africa: distribution, diversity and the protected area network. No such luck for Acacia, I’m afraid.
- Monocropping Cultures into Ruin: The Loss of Food Varieties and Cultural Diversity. Are you sure you want to know what a sociologist and a political scientist have to say on the matter?