- Cologne has a mustard museum and I want to visit it.
- Lecture on the role of sugar in supporting slavery and capitalism. Where is the sugar museum?Ah here it is.
- The cassowary may have been domesticated in New Guinea ten thousand years ago (with sugarcane?). Deserves a museum.
- Speaking of domestication, here is how that of citrus happened. There’s actually a number of different citrus museums out there.
- Nice PhD opportunity Sweden studying beans in Rwanda. There are museums in both places, I’m pretty sure.
Brainfood: Cola trade, Amalfi terraces, Satoyama value, Burkinabe cattle, Tree planting, Chickpea adoption, Varietal diversification, Wheat diversity, Maize adaptation, Stress breeding, Root & tubers, Cropping data
- Evidence of an Eleventh-Century AD Cola Nitida Trade into the Middle Niger Region. Before then, there was not much trade between the savannah and forest zones of West Africa, which is kind of remarkable.
- Risk factors and plant management activities for the terraced agricultural systems on the Amalfi coast (Italy): an interdisciplinary approach. The terrace walls need agriculture just as much as agriculture needs the walls. Had me wondering whether those terraces were there when the cola trade started up in West Africa.
- Nexus of the awareness of ecosystem services as a “public-benefit value” and “utility value for consumption”: an economic evaluation of the agricultural culture of Satoyama in Japan. Ecosystem services are hard to sell. Probably in Amalfi too, I bet.
- Values and Beliefs That Shape Cattle Breeding in Southwestern Burkina Faso. Community-based breeding programmes need trusted leadership. Don’t we all.
- Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India. Decades of tree planting wasted. If only there had been better leadership.
- Unplanned but well prepared: A reinterpreted success story of international agricultural research, and its implications. Yeah, but even when an intervention is a success, as in this case, the reasons are beyond the control of researchers. The lesson: plan for the unplannable…
- Smallholder farmer engagement in citizen science for varietal diversification enhances adaptive capacity and productivity in Bihar, India. …and bet on diversity, of course…
- Introducing Beneficial Alleles from Plant Genetic Resources into the Wheat Germplasm. …like wheat breeders have been doing…
- A B73 x Palomero Toluqueño mapping population reveals local adaptation in Mexican highland maize. …and maize farmers too for that matter.
- Developing climate-resilient crops: improving plant tolerance to stress combination. And the need for diversity is only going to increase.
- Suitability of root, tuber, and banana crops in Central Africa can be favoured under future climates. I wouldn’t plan on it though…
- A review of global gridded cropping system data products. …but it’s good to finally know how all the different products that can be used to make these predictions stack up against each other.
Nibbles: Wild potato, Pottery & food, Maltese, Denisse, Feeding Ourselves, Species concept
- Ancient potato.
- Ancient pottery.
- Ancient dog breed?
- Oldish botanical illustrations.
- Old argument: diversification or specialization?
- Even older argument: what’s a species?
Brainfood: Domestication, Maize roots, Dental calculus, Psychedelic drugs, Green manures, Forage millet, VIR radish, Wild beans, Siberian dogs, Maize taxi, Dairying history
- Reconsidering domestication from a process archaeology perspective. De-colonising, and de-transitivising, domestication.
- Maize biochemistry in response to root herbivory was mediated by domestication, spread, and breeding. Not archaeology, but an example of the more expansive view of domestication being touted above.
- Tracking the transition to agriculture in Southern Europe through ancient DNA analysis of dental calculus. Agriculture was associated with some changes in oral microbiomes, but not nearly as big as happened relatively recently. One could perhaps argue that some oral commensals were domesticated? No? Too much? More on dental calculus below…
- The Failed Globalization of Psychedelic Drugs in the Early Modern World. Culture and religion affected why tobacco spread around and peyote didn’t. Wait, domestication had nothing to do with it?
- Estimating agronomically relevant symbiotic nitrogen fixation in green manure breeding programs. All the better to domesticate them.
- Assessing Forage Potential of the Global Collection of Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) Conserved at the ICRISAT Genebank. The top 10 identified, and they’re not bad, considering forage potential was not what the crop was domesticated for. ILRI unavailable for comment :)
- Genetic Diversity of Phenotypic and Biochemical Traits in VIR Radish (Raphanus sativus L.) Germplasm Collection. More variable than was once thought. Ah, domestication, you never disappoint…
- Preliminary evaluation of wild bean (Phaseolus spp.) germplasm for resistance to Fusarium cuneirostrum and Fusarium oxysporum. Wait, domestication can disappoint after all. Deeply. At least we still have the CWR.
- Not so local: the population genetics of convergent adaptation in maize and teosinte. People moved maize about, post-domestication, usefully bringing it into contact with teosinte. But the main author Dr Silas Tittes says it better. Hail the maize taxi!
- Modern Siberian dog ancestry was shaped by several thousand years of Eurasian-wide trade and human dispersal. People moved dogs about, post-domestication. The doggie taxi?
- Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions. People moved around because of milk. But the main author Dr Shevan Wilkin says it better, and links this with other important papers. Dental calculus never disappoints.
Nibbles: Pasta al forno, Polynesian dispersal, Ryan Phelan talk
- More evidence that some food staples are going to be in trouble.
- Samoa to Rapa Nui in 400 years. But the Americas before that? Mash up with banana, taro and sweet potato next.
- TED talk on genetic rescue.