- Today’s new national genebank for food security? Step proudly forward, Rwanda!
- Bolivians are eating three times more quinoa. Or maybe three times more Bolivians are eating quinoa.
- Growing history in a pre-Columbian English cottage garden.
- Bland tomatoes all down to the lack of volatiles.
- Daily Kos spreads the Guardian’s gospel of SRI rice; so is aerobic rice a step down that path?
- Speaking of which, those Bihari farmers have snagged a world record potato harvest, using organic methods, and a relatively new variety from Indian breeders.
Brainfood: Understanding conservation, Melon diversity, Brassica viruses, Livestock domestication, Parks and conservation, Intensification, Wild apple, Conservation planning, Pepper diversity, Silene diversity, Connectivity in restoration, Paying for conservation, Dog evolution, Pasture productivity
- Four barriers to the global understanding of biodiversity conservation: wealth, language, geographical location and security. Probably not a bad list for agricultural biodiversity either.
- SNP genotyping in melons: genetic variation, population structure, and linkage disequilibrium. Two main population, 5 sub-populations, no surprises. Oh hum.
- Turnip Mosaic Potyvirus Probably First Spread to Eurasian Brassica Crops from Wild Orchids about 1000 Years Ago. Which corresponds to the expansion of agriculture in Europe as a result of a warming phase.
- The Prey Pathway: A Regional History of Cattle (Bos taurus) and Pig (Sus scrofa) Domestication in the Northern Jordan Valley, Israel. Domestication in 8th millennium, preceded by overhunting. And all figured out without recourse to DNA.
- The Effects of Isolation and Natural Park Coverage for Landrace In situ Conservation: An Approach from the Montseny Mountains (NE Spain). Do farmers in parks conserve landraces because they are isolated, or because they are in parks? Both, it seems.
- Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Doubling in food demand from 2005 to 2050 predicted. Current trends of intensification in rich countries and expansion in not-so-rich bad, moderate intensification everywhere good.
- Postglacial recolonization history of the European crabapple (Malus sylvestris Mill.), a wild contributor to the domesticated apple. Differentiation in 3 separate glacial refugia, then expansion and admixture at boundaries.
- Testing Surrogacy Assumptions: Can Threatened and Endangered Plants Be Grouped by Biological Similarity and Abundances? No.
- Characterization of Capsicum annuum Genetic Diversity and Population Structure Based on Parallel Polymorphism Discovery with a 30K Unigene Pepper GeneChip. The hot ones are more diverse.
- Agronomical use as baby leaf salad of Silene vulgaris based on morphological, biochemical and molecular traits. Some populations are nicer than others.
- Patterns of contemporary gene flow suggest low functional connectivity of grasslands in a fragmented agricultural landscape. When restoring a species at a site, it is better if the new population is near a large existing population.
- Using choice experiments to understand public demand for the conservation of nature: A case study in a protected area of Chile. Visitors willing to pay $2-9 per visit, depending on the ecosystem service provided, which didn’t alas include CWRs.
- Y chromosome analysis of dingoes and Southeast Asian village dogs suggests a Neolithic continental expansion from Southeast Asia followed by multiple Austronesian dispersals. Dogs arose independently in SE Asia and displaced older lineages to the N and W.
- More Stable Productivity of Semi Natural Grasslands than Sown Pastures in a Seasonally Dry Climate. Over the course of a year that is, presumably due to species diversity. And the odd tree helps towards the end of the dry season. Which is why ICRAF is all over it.
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.
Nibbles: Yarsagumba, Chocolate meet & dig, Beer dig, Mapping disease, Mapping language, Going digital, Urban ag meet, Weird citrus, CGIAR genebanks and more, Microbiome
- Off-colour jokes pumped out with abandon as Viagra fungus splashed all over headlines.
- Two of my favourite words in one conference: sustainable and chocolate. Can I get some archaeology with that? Yes, you can. Trifecta!
- Prefer beer to chocolate? We’ve got you covered.
- Sudden oak death mapping gets all interactive. Will nobody do something similar for agrobiodiversity?
- The geography of the onion. No, not The Onion. And not interactive.
- Go online, young scientist! Even if it involves giving banana research priority setting a Facebook page? Well, why not.
- Whoa, there’s an Urban Agriculture Summit?
- Citrus australasica? Seriously?
- CGIAR crown jewels safe at last. No off-colour headlines, please.
- Some genebanks doing ok, others not so much.
- Gut microbiome kinda sorta implicated in kwashiorkor. And more from NYT.
Nibbles: Cluster archive, Plant Press, Yet more quinoa, African viruses, African veggies, Slum livestock, Protected area monitor, Chinese rice variety, Talking shops, PGR course
- Another website archiving phylogenetic trees? What are the odds? Well, they are different animals.
- Did we ever link to The Plant Press? If not, we should have.
- The quinoa controversy rumbles on. We’ve got that covered too. And since you’re at it, why not help revise the descriptors?
- Bad news for Africa: plant viruses. Ah but there are varieties for that problem, no? No? Well, you can always highlight the little blighters as research priorities.
- Good news for Africa: local vegetables.
- Sort of good news for Africa, I guess: livestock in slums.
- New website keeps an eye on Protected Area Downgrading, Downsizing, and Degazettement. Interactively, natch. Well, actually, not so much. Can’t export, or import. Maybe the mash-up will fix that. Anyway, most protected areas are in the wrong place, aren’t they?
- Conserving Chinese rice, one variety at the time.
- Latest installment of The Economist’s Feeding the World thing is happening right now, and you can follow it on Twitter using #feedingtheworld. Or maybe you’d like to re-imagine agriculture with the CGIAR instead?
- Apply for the latest installment of Wageningen’s PGR course.