- Moroccan almond is a distinct gene pool as revealed by SSR. Ok, now what?
- Molecular markers for late blight resistance breeding of potato: an update. Ok, now what?
- Reconstructing the Maize Market in Rural Mexico. Not so free after all.
- Why agronomy in the developing world has become contentious. Neoliberalism, participation and environmentalism. The answer? Political agronomy.
- Millet and sauce: The uses and functions of querns among the Minyanka (Mali). Form depends on more than just function.
- Landscape pattern and sustainability of a 1300-year-old agricultural landscape in subtropical mountain areas, Southwestern China. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
- Mathematical optimization ideas for biodiversity conservation. Fancy math works sometimes but not always. Wonder if it would work on the Hani terraces above. Or on Mexican maize for that matter.
- Mitochondrial genome is paternally inherited in Cucumis allotetraploid (C. × hytivus) derived by interspecific hybridization. Not the chlororoplast genome though. Weird. But now what?
- Migrate or evolve: options for plant pathogens under climate change. Or, indeed, both. But we need better models, and a better handle on what human interventions can do. Interestingly, pathogen diversity may well increase in some places.
Nibbles: GRISP video, Savory management, Herbarium digitization, Fancy NASA map, Range photos, Fancy phenotyping, Ghana research, African food, Neotropical tree book, Epigenetics of nutrition, Liberian veg seed, Wheat belly, Germany & India
- The future of rice science. It says here.
- Is Holistic Management the SRI of livestock?
- Another online botanical database to contend with. Eventually.
- NASA maps poleward vegetation shift. I suspect the Progressive Cattleman will be onto that in a flash. See what I did there?
- More fancy aerial science, this time at the service of phenotyping. And more of the same.
- Ghana’s agricultural research system deconstructed. Would have been nice to mention the genebank.
- African food, in Africa and America. And in audio.
- Propagating tropical trees for fun and profit.
- The epigenetics of maternal nutrition, courtesy of USDA.
- Liberians showered in seeds.
- Kim, are you listening? This one’s for you.
- IPK reaches out to India.
Brainfood: Flower microbiome, Salt screening, Sustainble fisheries, Pollinator interactions, Wild pollinators, Forest loss, Landraces, Fisheries collapse, Quinoa diversity, Potted plants, Wheat diversity, Goat diversity, Genomics of domestication
- Unexpected Diversity during Community Succession in the Apple Flower Microbiome. Could be important in disease management.
- Plant Tissue Culture: A Useful Measure for the Screening of Salt Tolerance in Plants. But lots of different ways to do it.
- Fisheries: Does catch reflect abundance? Some. But probably not enough. Here’s the industry spin. And the NY Times does a number on it.
- Plant-Pollinator Interactions over 120 Years: Loss of Species, Co-Occurrence and Function. Extinctions and phenological shifts have occurred, but the system has shown resilience. It is unlikely, however, to continue to do so.
- Wild Pollinators Enhance Fruit Set of Crops Regardless of Honey Bee Abundance. Don’t you sometimes wish titles left something to the imagination? NPR breaks it down for ya, but doesn’t add much to the title.
- Continental estimates of forest cover and forest cover changes in the dry ecosystems of Africa between 1990 and 2000. About 20 Mha of forest loss, not 34 Mha. Still too much, though. But how did FAO get it so wrong?
- Robustness and Strategies of Adaptation among Farmer Varieties of African Rice (Oryza glaberrima) and Asian Rice (Oryza sativa) across West Africa. Local varieties can scale out. And should be used in breeding.
- Genetic and life-history changes associated with fisheries-induced population collapse. Phenotypic changes during Eurasian perch Baltic Sea fisheries collapse could be evolution, but when you look at the genetics it looks more like immigration of unadapted interlopers. Which might be bad for recovery.
- Variable activation of immune response by quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) prolamins in celiac disease. Quinoa may be gluten-free, but it can still give you grief, and some varieties are far worse than others.
- Social exchange and vegetative propagation: An untold story of British potted plants. It’s artificial selection, Jim, but not as we know it.
- Wheat Cultivar Performance and Stability between No-Till and Conventional Tillage Systems in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Tested 21 cultivars for performance under late-planted no-till system and — guess what? — performance varied.
- Genetic diversity and structure in Asian native goat analyzed by newly developed SNP markers. They originated in W Asia, and then admixtured (admixed?) in the E to different extents. Yeah, I thought we knew that already too, but scientists gotta make a living.
- A Bountiful Harvest: Genomic Insights into Crop Domestication Phenotypes. The mutations that underpinned domestication came in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Like this one in maize, for example.
Brainfood: Vinecology, African veggies, Land abandonment, Wheat special collection, Altitude and diversity, Persistence and diversity, Intensification, Rainfall and fruit, Mosaic tree
- 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.
Brainfood: Cotton hybrids, Lentil drought phenotyping, Wild Prunus, Italian food discourse, Disturbance and diversity, Olive domestication, Rhizobium diversity, Intensification, Niche model uncertainty
- Interspecific hybridization in Gossypium L.: characterization of progenies with different ploidy-confirmed multigenomic backgrounds. They can be made, with some difficulty, and could be useful.
- A new phenotyping technique for screening for drought tolerance in lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.). In hydroponics. Seems to work.
- Polyploidy and microsatellite variation in the relict tree Prunus lusitanica L.: how effective are refugia in preserving genotypic diversity of clonal taxa? The island populations are particularly important.
- Trade-off or convergence? The role of food security in the evolution of food discourse in Italy. The food crisis had quite an impact.
- Diversity loss with persistent human disturbance increases vulnerability to ecosystem collapse. Suppression of fire in a species-rich grassland has resulted in a very low diversity but highly productive vegetation. Unfortunately, when you re-introduce fire, the whole thing collapses.
- The complex history of the olive tree: from Late Quaternary diversification of Mediterranean lineages to primary domestication in the northern Levant. Don’t forget the 3 refugia in Middle East, Aegean and Gibraltar. And, coincidentally, more.
- Isolation and characterization of salt-tolerant rhizobia native to the desert soils of United Arab Emirates. I hope someone conserves them.
- The compatibility of agricultural intensification in a global hotspot of smallholder agrobiodiversity (Bolivia). Peaches for cash didn’t do anything nasty to the diverse maize landraces. Which are in any case conserved ex situ, just to be on the safe side? Right?
- Detrital diversity influences estuarine ecosystem performance. Diverse mud makes for healthier seagrasses and mangroves.
- Conservation Planning with Uncertain Climate Change Projections. Gotta look at those sensitivities.