- Why Highland Cattle? Because they look so cool, of course.
- It’s sahlib time!
- Australians find the extra gluten protein gene they need in Italian wheat.
- Where the hell was the dog domesticated?
- Rooibos tea is latest climate change victim.
Brainfood: Beans, Tree erosion, Climate space, Ecosystem services, Conservation, Pest management, Phenomics, Oca, Biodiversity research
- Seed Morphobiometry of Wild and Cultivated Taxa of Phaseolus L. (Fabaceae). Measurements confirm taxonomy; three big groups.
- Meta-Analysis of Susceptibility of Woody Plants to Loss of Genetic Diversity through Habitat Fragmentation. Pollination mechanism makes little difference.
- Running Out of Climate Space. Commentary on two paper in the same issue of Science; now, someone do the same for crops.
- The Future of Payments for Environmental Services. Any ag? Only in a negative way.
- Land, Food, and Biodiversity. Palm oil, pollution, pristine environments, population pressure.
- Avian Conservation Practices Strengthen Ecosystem Services in California Vineyards. Birds eat insects shock.
- Phenomics – technologies to relieve the phenotyping bottleneck. Just what we need for mo’ better characterization and evaluation.
- Diversification of the American bulb-bearing Oxalis (Oxalidaceae): Dispersal to North America and modification of the tristylous breeding system. Oca fans everywhere are agog.
- Global biodiversity research during 1900–2009: a bibliometric analysis. Somebody tell us; any ag?
Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here.
Brainfood: Broomcorn millet, Domestication, Stand diversity, South African ornamentals, Rice wild relatives, Agriculture under climate change, Wheat domestication
- Genetic diversity and phylogeography of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) across Eurasia. One origin or two? Moving east or west? We still don’t know, but crop wild relatives may tell us.
- Next-generation sequencing for understanding and accelerating crop domestication. Those who understand history may be able to repeat it.
- Competition among loblolly pine trees: Does genetic variability of the trees in a stand matter? Can’t really say either way.
- The potential of South African indigenous plants for the international cut flower trade. Could do better.
- Genetic variability of banana with ornamental potential. The Embrapa Musa collection has some really cool-looking plants.
- Cytological Behavior of Hybridization Barriers Between Oryza sativa and Oryza officinalis. I guess that’s why they call it the tertiary genepool.
- Ancient lipids reveal continuity in culinary practices across the transition to agriculture in Northern Europe. Crap on 6000-year-old ceramic vessels shows people in the Western Baltic continued to eat fish and clams even after agriculture arrived. Well do you blame them?
- Options for support to agriculture and food security under climate change. Show ’em yer multi-pronged strategies, that’ll get their attention.
- N.I. Vavilov’s Theory of Centres of Diversity in the Light of Current Understanding of Wheat Diversity, Domestication and Evolution. When genes flow from centre of origin, that centre will not coincide with centre of diversity.
Brainfood: Ectomycorrhiza, Synthetic peanuts, Ancient Greek amphorae, European bison, Pea breeding, Animal domestication
- Ectomycorrhizas and climate change. One more damn thing to worry about.
- Meiotic analysis of the hybrids between cultivated and synthetic tetraploid groundnuts. It’s normal. The meiosis I mean. Why isn’t this sort of thing done with more crops?
- Aspects of Ancient Greek trade re-evaluated with amphora DNA evidence. More than just wine and olive oil.
- Reconstructing range dynamics and range fragmentation of European bison for the last 8000 years. More eastern and northern than thought, and more affected by the spread of farming than climate change in the Holocene.
- Resistance to downy mildew (Peronospora viciae) in Australian field pea germplasm (Pisum sativum). It comes from Afghanistan.
- Deciphering the genetic basis of animal domestication. Despite all that selection and all those bottlenecks, they really are diverse.
Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here.
Nibbles: Book, Breeding, Labour, Tallante’s chickpea, Bacardi yeast, Solutions, Sandwiches, Mapping resistance, Cucumber history, Maya nuts
- Can a person called Rushing really have written a book on Slow Gardening?
- Genetic Engineering vs. Breeding. No contest, really.
- Georgia peaches, rotting in the sun. Can the consequences of clamping down on immigrant labour really have been unintended?
- Tallante’s chickpea back from the brink. No, I don’t know why as species of Astragalus is called a chickpea. Is it even a CWR?
- Bacardi and its yeast. A tale of derring-do and intellectual property rights. h/t CAS-IP.
- Back40 takes aim at Solutions for a Cultivated Planet, so we don’t have to.
- UK productivity 5,263 beef sandwiches per hectare(bsp/h), compared to 2,439 bsp/h in the mid-18th century. h/t The Tracing Paper.
- Another great interactive map, this time of bacterial diversity of the worst kind.
- Cucumbers in Europe: a history. AoB blog explains all.
- The good old Maya nut to the rescue again.