- Vinecology: pairing wine with nature. You can have wine, and drink it too.
- The role of wild vegetable species in household food security in maize based subsistence cropping systems. Is very significant, in South Africa.
- Does land abandonment decrease species richness and abundance of plants and animals in Mediterranean pastures, arable lands and permanent croplands? Well, we wont know until these guys do their review, as described here. What a weird paper.
- Development of a core collection of Triticum and Aegilops species for improvement of wheat for activity against chronic diseases. Used GRIN to select material from areas varying in cancer prevalence.
- Patterns of Genetic Variation across Altitude in Three Plant Species of Semi-Dry Grasslands. Populations on the edge altitudinally are not on the edge genetically.
- Is community persistence related to diversity? A test with prairie species in a long-term experiment. Yes. If by persistence you mean that the community resists invasion better after you stop weeding it.
- Agricultural intensification in Brazil and its effects on land use patterns: An analysis of the 1975-2006 period. Intensification leads to decreased expansion only where land is scarce, i.e. NOT at the frontier.
- Long-term Changes in Fruit Phenology in a West African Lowland Tropical Rain Forest are Not Explained by Rainfall. I don’t get it. Maybe someone can explain it to me.
- Differences in gene expression within a striking phenotypic mosaic Eucalyptus tree that varies in susceptibility to herbivory. One tree, 2 chemotypes, many genes differentially expressed, 10 SNPs that could affect secondary metabolism.
Nibbles: BXW, GMOs, Quinoa, Farm incomes, WIPO, Diverse diets, Agroforestry, Rwanda genebank
- Plantwise says you can manage banana xanthomonas wilt; so no need for GMOs?
- DG of Bioversity says “adopt transgenic crops carefully and on a case to case basis”.
- “You can contribute to the revision of quinoa descriptors”. Is there one for level of threat to indigenous people?
- Poor US farmers. “Despite last year’s drought, net farm income in US … will be highest since 1973.” h/t Tom.
- “WIPO Instrument on genetic resources and traditional knowledge should reflect developments in international law and policy relating to indigenous peoples.” Course it should.
- “[N]otable gains in dietary diversity and increased child health in hundreds of farm communities of Northern Malawi.” Any causal link?
- Roger Leakey talks agroforestry.
- Rwanda saves seeds.
Nibbles: Farm size, Evidence-based policy, Priority sites, Tibetan grasslands, Sustainable intensification, Lipid improvement, Medicinal plants, Local fish, Wheat access, Purple yam,
- Small is beautiful. No, wait… And more from where that came, ahem, from.
- Evidence? We don’t need no stinking evidence.
- CIAT blogs about a workshop about a model about prioritization about populations about breeding about beans. While its peach palm thing gets picked up.
- Tibetan grasslands feel the heat. Not entirely certain why ICRAF should care, but it’s good to know.
- Peaches compatible with maize in Bolivian agrobiodiversity hotspot. Not nearly enough info in this release, will need to chase it up. And here it is.
- Rothamstead engineers lipids. But it’s for better nutrition, so that’s ok.
- Trad med in RSA.
- Fish as an ingredient of complementary foods. Nutritious, I’m sure, but I suspect Crocodile Dundee’s comment on the iguana applies.
- US wheat breeders worried about access. Maybe if the country ratified the ITPGRFA?
- Filipinos really like purple sweets, apparently. Here are some made of purple yam, ube, Dioscorea alata, call it what you will.
Nibbles: Drought, Forestry, Sustainable intensification, Horta, Tomatoes, Indian landraces, Seed Library, Wartime farming, EU legislation
- Is it too early to be talking about drought in the US?
- Or about collaborations between forestry and agriculture?
- How about the sustainable intensification of African agriculture?
- Enough of these rhetorical question, I hear you cry. Give us information! About wild greens on Crete.
- Or one person’s view of two remarkable tomatoes.
- Or how farmers in India seek – and find – seeds of older and traditional varieties.
- In Basalt, Colorado, you just pop into your local library. Rock on.
- In Toronto, Ontario, you watch TV to learn how your ex-overlords in Britain doubled food production in a few short growing seasons.
- And in Europe? You’re grateful to have received the same reply to your concerns about agricultural biodiversity as everyone else who shares those concerns.
Brainfood: Vitamin C, Nutrition and health, European protected areas, Coffea diversity, Climate change modelling, Soil microbes, Niche modelling, Conflict, Human modified landscapes, Horse diversity, Pigeon diversity
- The challenge of increasing vitamin C content in plant foods. Surely not just because it is challenging?
- Health economics and nutrition: a review of published evidence. “[A]pproaches and methodologies are sometimes ad hoc in nature and vary widely in quality.” Ain’t that always the way.
- European protected areas: Past, present and future. The future will need to be different from the past.
- Genetic structure and diversity of coffee (Coffea) across Africa and the Indian Ocean islands revealed using microsatellites. Good correspondence with morphological species. Madagascar a diversity hotspot.
- Special Issue of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology on Agricultural prediction using climate model ensembles. There’s more than one way to identify a potential adaptation hotspot. Well that’s reassuring. Not.
- Changes in soil microbial functional diversity under different vegetation restoration patterns for Hulunbeier Sandy Land. Restoring desertified grassland led to more soil microbial diversity. Which is good because…?
- A review of composition studies of Cameroon traditional dishes: Macronutrients and minerals. 117 of them. Good for Fe, Zn, Mg.
- Essential elements of discourse for advancing the modelling of species’ current and potential distributions. There’s lots of methods, all quite different, embrace the diversity.
- Understanding and managing conservation conflicts. Build up an evidence base, and employ some social scientists to explain it.
- On the hope for biodiversity-friendly tropical landscapes. In the end, it’s about the agriculture. In more ways than one.
- Genetic Diversity in the Modern Horse Illustrated from Genome-Wide SNP Data. High maternal, low paternal during domestication. Low diversity breeds the ones you’d expect. Similar breeds the ones you’d expect.
- Genomic Diversity and Evolution of the Head Crest in the Rock Pigeon. Middle Eastern origins, Darwin vindicated. Again.