- Deeper insights into how farmers get their seeds could make seed aid more effective shock, with added video goodness.
- Big data for smallholder farmers; CIAT’s boss writes the history.
- Meat for the masses and dairy for the deities. What the builders of Stonehenge ate, and where.
- If you thought grapolo spargolo was a pseudonym of the Prosecco grape variety Glera, you’re in good company. But wrong. “[M]any English-language bloggers have simply copied and pasted the erroneous information from the Wiki entry”. For shame!
Brainfood: Forage diversity, Chinese cherry, Meta-diversity, Sunflower ecogeography, Lima bean domestication, Dog breeding, Goat ethnogenetics, Pigs vs chickens
- Complementary effects of species and genetic diversity on productivity and stability of sown grasslands. Species diversity good for total production, genetic diversity good for regular production throughout the year, regardless of water. And more, and more.
- Genetic Diversity and Population Structure Patterns in Chinese Cherry (Prunus pseudocerasus Lindl) Landraces. Perhaps 2 domestication sites.
- Inter-individual variation promotes ecological success of populations and species: evidence from experimental and comparative studies. More diverse populations are less vulnerable to environmental changes, more stable in population size, less extinction prone, have better establishment success and larger ranges, especially under stress.
- Ecogeography and utility to plant breeding of the crop wild relatives of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.). Many close relatives of the crop in extreme environments.
- Domestication of small-seeded lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus L.) landraces in Mesoamerica: evidence from microsatellite markers. Two domestications events. Maybe.
- Trends in genetic diversity for all Kennel Club registered pedigree dog breeds. Popular sires have made for a lot of inbreeding, but this has been getting better of late.
- The N’Dama dilemma: ethnogenetics and small ruminant breed dynamics in the tsetse zone, The Gambia. Saving the name is not enough.
- The Pig and the Chicken in the Middle East: Modeling Human Subsistence Behavior in the Archaeological Record Using Historical and Animal Husbandry Data. Chickens replaced pigs in the first millennium Middle East because they were smaller and more efficient. Oh, and eggs.
Nibbles: Pumpkin beer, Food security, SDGs, Wild rice, Grape, Wild Helianthus
- Pumpkin beer is an abomination, early, late or right on time.
- The best thing about India’s National Food Security Act is that it now includes millets and other “coarse” grains, which gets barely a mention in How secure is India’s National Food Security Act?.
- Calling BS on the SDGs.
- If they’re planting it, can it be truly “wild” rice? Cultivation vs domestication: discuss.
- AoB blog investigates a popular but little-known grape variety.
- What is it about crop wild relatives all of a sudden. Now it’s sunflowers.
Brainfood: Intensification, Diversity double, Mexican homegardens, Coffee certification, US crop diversity, Fig identification, Wild rice origins, Domestication & trophic interactions
- Population and Environmental Correlates of Maize Yields in Mesoamerica: a Test of Boserup’s Hypothesis in the Milpa. Fallows don’t really reduce much with increasing population density. Yields, on the other hand, do.
- If They Grow It, Will They Eat and Grow? Evidence from Zambia on Agricultural Diversity and Child Undernutrition. Unlike other recent studies, this one finds positive correlations among production diversity, dietary diversity and nutritional outcomes.
- Community agro biodiversity conservation continuum: an integrated approach to achieve food and nutrition security. Provides the theoretical underpinning of the finding in the previous paper: conservation, cultivation, consumption and commerce.
- Home Garden Agrobiodiversity Differentiates Along a Rural—Peri–Urban Gradient in Campeche, México. Different species in urban homegardens compared to rural, but same overall diversity levels.
- Does certification improve biodiversity conservation in Brazilian coffee farms? Meh.
- Crop Species Diversity Changes in the United States: 1978–2012. It’s gone down.
- Mediterranean basin Ficus carica L.: from genetic diversity and structure to authentication of a Protected Designation of Origin cultivar using microsatellite markers. Microsatellites can recognize the protected ‘Kymis’ cultivar. Rejoice.
- Population genetic structure of Oryza rufipogon and O. nivara: implications for the origin of O. nivara. Multiple origins of nivara from rufipogon, and climatic differentiation.
- Complex tritrophic interactions in response to crop domestication: predictions from the wild. What’s good for humans is (generally) good for herbivores.
Nibbles: Pig landrace, Campbell’s Soup tomato, HarvestPlus, CG & SDGs, Georgian wine, American vegetables, Kenya & nutrition, Equator Prize, Wheat breeding
- So there’s a “celebrity pork expert.” No, not David Cameron, Carl Blake.
- Nevermind about resurrecting pig breeds, how about resurrecting “America’s best tomato“?
- Mapping biofortification outreach.
- CG writes letter to heads of state on SDGs. But will they listen?
- How they store wine in Georgia.
- US needs more veggies. Don’t we all.
- Kenya is a nutrition star.
- The Equator Prize 2015 winners are in.
- Article on wheat illustrated with picture of millet labelled sorghum