- Sorry about slow blogging lately. Life caught up with us. Slowly getting back in the saddle…
- ISIS benefitting from agricultural production as much as oil.
- Why we should drop “statistically significant.”
- Irish folk medicine being used. Again. Or still.
- Back to the future of farms, medieval edition: it’s the faldage, stupid.
- Botanical art in history.
- Applying zoo methods to plant conservation. Maybe should be the other way too?
- The future of dates is in the US?
- History of the Honeycrisp apple, for all you Red Delicious haters out there.
- Ancient stash found. Down to seeds and stems.
- Keep warm with some nice Latin American drinks.
- Or beer made from old yeast from a shipwreck.
Aurochs redux
A paper just out in Open Quaternary discusses “The Draft Genome of Extinct European Aurochs and its Implications for De-Extinction.” Not to boast about it, but we were onto that five years back.
Brainfood: SE Asia archaeobotany, Avocado cryo, Farm diversity & revenue, DOC cheese, Kenyan agrobiodiversity, Perennial pigeonpea, Algerian sheep diversity, Basil rankings, Wild sunflower
- Rice, beans and trade crops on the early maritime Silk Route in Southeast Asia. At trade crossroads, crops had to audition for inclusion in the local menu.
- Cryopreservation of somatic embryos for avocado germplasm conservation. Still needs work.
- Soil fertility, crop biodiversity, and farmers’ revenues: Evidence from Italy. Diverse farms are more profitable, and can make up for poor soils.
- Native and Non-Native Sheep Breed Differences in Canestrato Pugliese Cheese Quality: a Resource for a Sustainable Pastoral System. Traditional local cheese is better when made with milk from traditional local breeds.
- Agrobiodiversity conservation enhances food security in subsistence-based farming systems of Eastern Kenya. But correlation is not causation.
- Estimating demand for perennial pigeon pea in Malawi using choice experiments. It won’t be liked everywhere.
- Genome-wide analysis highlights genetic dilution in Algerian sheep. Two of the 7 local breeds studied are in trouble due to uncontrolled breeding with a third, but may be doing better in neighbouring countries.
- Multicriteria optimization to evaluate the performance of Ocimum basilicum L. varieties. Fancy maths allows you to pick the best basil variety out of 8.
- The challenges of maintaining a collection of wild sunflower (Helianthus) species. Are many and varied…
Nibbles: European bison, Eucalypts and CC, Flood prevention, Svalbard, Cute animals
- What sort of sick bastard decapitates European bison re-introduced to the wild?
- Might have to introduce eucalypts to different places soon. No doubt that will also end in tears.
- Diversity helps with flooding. But it’s probably too late.
- USDA buys some insurance. Because life.
- Animal portraits are guaranteed to make your day better. Even this day.
Nibbles: Plant blindness, Grape breeding, Mixed farming, Genebank crowdfunding, CGN collecting, Science comms
- Who needs plants anyway?
- Who needs seedless grapes anyway?
- Who needs livestock anyway?
- Who needs the CIMMYT genebank anyway?
- Who needs information on germplasm collecting missions anyway?
- Who needs science communications anyway?