- Crops for the Future finds a nice ricebean project.
- The wheats of Afghanistan.
- A former ICRISAT intern speaks. The world listens.
- Collecting the Happy Tree of China.
- Global water stress maps. Does CCAFS know? Or care?
- Rodale hearts organic.
Brainfood: Rice yield, Carrot evaluation, Caper chemistry, Rice fortification, Range shifts, Baobab, Tunisian thyme, Drought-tolerant rice
- Rice yields and yield gaps in Southeast Asia: Past trends and future outlook. If average farmers became like best-yielding farmers that would meet 2050 needs, except in the Philippines, where some more structural stuff is needed.
- Method of evaluating diversity of carrot roots using a self-organizing map and image data. The sound you hear is that of butterflies being broken on wheels.
- Bioactive compounds from Capparis spinosa subsp. rupestris. Are pretty much the same as those in subsp. spinosa.
- Constitutive Overexpression of the OsNAS Gene Family Reveals Single-Gene Strategies for Effective Iron- and Zinc-Biofortification of Rice Endosperm. So that’s a good thing, right?
- Analysis of climate paths reveals potential limitations on species range shifts. Corridors not the answer. Or not the only answer. Or not the full answer.
- An updated review of Adansonia digitata: A commercially important African tree. Do baobab scientists not sometimes long for the Time Before Reviews, when they actually, you know, did stuff?
- Genetic diversity, population structure and relationships of Tunisian Thymus algeriensis Boiss. et Reut. and Thymus capitatus Hoffm. et Link. assessed by isozymes. Dad, what’s an isozyme? Ah, son, it’s a thing people used in the Time Before DNA. The two species are different, they need to be managed in different ways.
- Potential Impact of Biotechnology on Adaption of Agriculture to Climate Change: The Case of Drought Tolerant Rice Breeding in Asia. Kinda pointless: “in severe drought both the [drought tolerant] and the conventional varieties were either not planted or, if planted, did not yield”.
Nibbles: Cow beauties, Ethnopharmacology etc
- UK High Comissioner in Namibia visits big agricultural show, discovers “hundreds of words [for] the markings on a cow“.
- CTA Wageningen has a (new?) dossier on Ethnopharmacology, food production, nutrition and biodiversity conservation: Towards a sustainable future for indigenous peoples.
Nice cuppa tea
The National Maritime Museum has a new gallery entitled ‘Trade Routes’ on the East India Company. There’s a couple of really nice associated videos on agrobiodiversity themes: tea and spices. No word on whether opium is in the offing.
Nibbles: Polyculture, Melons, Cheese 2011, Australian medicinals
- Do polycultures have a role in modern agriculture? Well, do they? h/t The Scientist Gardener.
- Texas breeders go for better melons.
- “Children from the city who try this yogurt don’t like it, but they’re not healthy like my children!”
- Hotspots for Aboriginal traditional medicinal plants mapped to within an inch of their lives, thanks to GBIF.