- Genomics reveals new landscapes for crop improvement. Which are dominated by the looming presence of Mount Phenotyping.
- Where Have All the Crop Phenotypes Gone? Someone mention phenotyping?
- Smallholder agricultural commercialization for income growth and poverty alleviation in southern Africa: A review. On balance, it’s a good thing.
- Genetic diversity of yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius (Poepp. & Endl.) H. Robinson) and its wild relatives as revealed by ISSR markers. Low diversity among the cultivated stuff, which is quite distinct from the wilds. All due to clonal propagation. No concrete recommendations apart from conserving all you can find. Pity.
- Molecular Genetic Diversity of Major Indian Rice Cultivars over Decadal Periods. Genetic diversity among high yielding varieties released in India went up between 1970 and 2010.
- Ten principles for a landscape approach to reconciling agriculture, conservation, and other competing land uses. Adapt, involve, multitask. And more, much more, from Mongbay.
- Uncertainty, ignorance and ambiguity in crop modelling for African agricultural adaptation. Be open about assumptions, communicate with and involve diverse stakeholders in appropriate ways, accept feedback from policy-makers. Could be talking about GMOs. Or the above.
- The effect of rising food prices on food consumption: systematic review with meta-regression. Worse for poorer countries, and worse for poorer households in all countries.
Nibbles: Brazil nut, PVP, Dog evolution, Plant Treaty in India, Kerala veggies, Rust tracking latest, Adapt or die, Quinoa latest, NZ seed exchange, African soybeans, Ancient aquaculture
- The Brazil nut needs its pollinators.
- How USDA protects plant varieties.
- American dogs are Asian, not European.
IndiaNepal working out how to implement the ITPGRFA.- Kerala’s vegetable terrace gardeners.
- Haven’t heard much about Ug99 lately, have we? Doesn’t mean people aren’t keeping a careful eye on it.
- Climate change 10,000 times faster than vertebrate evolution.
- Why quinoa is not “taking over the world.”
- Not even New Zealand. Though not for want of trying.
- In the meantime, soybeans taking over Africa?
- Aquaculture that’s sustainable and ancient. Includes taro fish ponds, which for some reason seem to me cool beyond measure.
Nibbles: CePaCT aroids, Chinese pigs, Vanuatu banana processing, Yam meeting, AAB meeting, Araucaria, Aquaculture, Malting barley, CIRAD baobab videos, US wine, Ancient grains, Barcode centre
- The Pacific pushes out its taros.
- China holds on to its pigs.
- Vanuatu preserves its bananas.
- The world talks about yams in particular. And crop breeding in general.
- How Britain got its monkey puzzles.
- Bangladesh goes for mola culture. But not only.
- Australia puts money into beer.
- France gets into the whole baobab factsheet thing, but with a video twist.
- Virginia makes wine. With infographic goodness.
- UK tries to slow down its food.
- Canada barcodes everything.
Brainfood: Leafy greens, Korean rice, Molecular breeding, Poultry conservation, Tree genomes, Pathogen genetics, Grazers and CC, Sustainable rangelands, Available land, Ecosystem services
- Analysis of urban consumers’ willingness to pay a premium for African Leafy Vegetables (ALVs) in Kenya: a case of Eldoret Town. An 80% premium! But in Eldoret. And Nairobi?
- Analysis and comparison of the γ-oryzanol content based on phylogenetic groups in Korean landraces of rice (Oryza sativa L.). Some groups are browner than others.
- What is the SMARTest way to breed plants and increase agrobiodiversity? Just another name for MAS. But some crops are SMARTer than others.
- Conservation of local Turkish and Italian chicken breeds: a case study. Turks can learn from Italians. And probably vice versa, I bet, although that’s not explored as much here.
- Open access to tree genomes: the path to a better forest. Hard to argue with. The open access bit more than the genomes bit.
- Evolution, selection and isolation: a genomic view of speciation in fungal plant pathogens. Know your enemy. Easier to figure out how new species become different than how they stay that way.
- Long-Term Climate Sensitivity of Grazer Performance: A Cross-Site Study. Hotter conditions means poorer forage quality means smaller bison. And maybe cattle. All other things being equal, like genetics, and range management. Which of course they never are.
- Ecosystem function enhanced by combining four functional types of plant species in intensively managed grassland mixtures: a 3-year continental-scale field experiment. See what I mean? And more.
- Estimating the world’s potentially available cropland using a bottom-up approach. Less than you’d think.
- Spatial interactions among ecosystem services in an urbanizing agricultural watershed. Very very limited places provide multiple services, especially crop production and water quality, which means you need to protect huge areas. But they’ll be mosaics.
Nibbles: Ug99, Heirloom & wild tomatoes, Opium, Healthy flavours, Quinoa descriptors, Wild yak community conservation, Phenotyping facility, Tree app, ABS & EU, C4, Barley in Ethiopia, Chinese coffee
- Not totally wild genes protect wheat from Ug99.
- Not really wild Texas Wild tomato brings Texan back to gardening. These in Peru are wild though.
- Speaking of gardening, here’s Michael Pollan on his struggles with opium.
- Wild, healthy fruit flavours becoming more popular on the soft drink market, but not clear to what extent they will come from actual plants, wild or otherwise. You know, plants with yield variation and other inconveniences. Plants that some people rely on for nutrition, by the way.
- Descriptors for quinoa, including the wild species. And more, much more.
- I wonder if there are descriptors for wild yaks.
- New UK facility for phenotyping plants, including wild ones, I’m sure.
- And if those wild UK plants are trees, you can use this app to identify them, before phenotyping them. Assuming you can dig them up and squeeze them into the new facility. Anyway, maybe one of them will be European Tree of the Year.
- Of course, if you wanted access to the genetic resources of such trees, you’d have to deal with the Nagoya Protocol, which the EU is getting to grips with, don’t worry.
- Not many C4 species among UK trees, I guess.
- Teff is C4, but that isn’t stopping people trying to replace it with barley in injira.
- Next thing you know the Chinese will be swapping tea for coffee. No, wait.