- Biological collections under pressure.
- And mobile phones probably wont help. Much.
- Chilean pisco? Really?
- The end of cooking?
- Sericulture on the Silk Road.
- ILRI is 40, did we say? Not sure what they do on sericulture. No doubt somebody there will tell us. They’re social networking machines over there.
- Watch out, ILRI, Silicon Valley is coming for ya.
- One of the reasons why we need livestock research: deforestation.
- I like any article with the word nexus in the title.
- The landscape approach meta-analyzed to within an inch of its life. Bottom line: it’s the women, stupid!
- The power of the people’s potatoes.
- A secret herb garden revealed. I hope they install CCTV.
- Kana’tarokhónwe. Yep, clickbait, but worth it, trust me. And then scale the thing up.
- How to do climate-smart agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean, country by country.
- Oh no, yet another article on that Himalayan Viagra caterpillar fungus thingy.
- Boffins resurrect 700-year-old fungus from reindeer crap.
- Indian rice breeders talk about their cool new basmati.
Nibbles: Grassland diversity, Home on the range, Delicate hump, Mexican medicinals, ‘Shrums, Salty potatoes, Salty pigs, Afforestation, Craft beer guy
- Diversity rules. In grasslands, settle down.
- You want bison with that grassland?
- Your hump, sir. Bison shbison.
- Federales crack down on medicinal plants.
- Including fungi?
- Salt-tolerant potatoes in the news, for the wrong reason.
- What is it about photos of pigs on a beach? You could grow the above potatoes on the beach and then the pigs could eat them. I’d pay money to see those pics.
- Japanese methods used to plant Indian urban forests. Tree planting has a special name?
- Peru deals with stunting.
- Hero.
Brainfood: Shea diversity, Weedy rice, Old barley, Grassland diversity, Afrikaner cattle, Sudanese baobab, FGR review, Small farmers, Ecological pest management, Andean ag changes, European soil biodiversity, Durum adaptation, Agrobodiversity indicators
- Genetic diversity in shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa subspecies nilotica) ethno-varieties in Uganda assessed with microsatellite markers. Three geographic populations revealed by SSRs, not much related to the folk classification.
- Malaysian weedy rice shows its true stripes: wild Oryza and elite rice cultivars shape agricultural weed evolution in Southeast Asia. The weed is caught in the middle and swings both ways.
- Farmers without borders—genetic structuring in century old barley (Hordeum vulgare). Nordic barley structured latitudinally, with lots more variation within landrace accessions than now, according to historical specimens.
- The Agrodiversity Experiment: three years of data from a multisite study in intensively managed grasslands. Does increasing plant diversity in intensively managed grassland communities increase their resource use efficiency? No idea, but here’s the data from a huge multi-site experiment. Go crazy.
- Genetic diversity in selected stud and commercial herds of the Afrikaner cattle breed. It’s doing just fine, genetically, despite recent declines in numbers.
- The African baobab (Adansonia digitata, Malvaceae): Genetic resources in neglected populations of the Nuba Mountains, Sudan. Maybe a little more variation in homesteads compared to the wild. Maybe.
- Seeing the trees as well as the forest: The importance of managing forest genetic resources. The first State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources and the first Global Plan of Action for the Conservation, Sustainable Use and Development of Forest Genetic Resources summarized: exchange, test in common gardens, and be clever with genetics, in breeding, management and restoration.
- Are small family farms a societal luxury good in wealthy countries? Rich countries don’t mind inefficient farms because they look nice.
- DIVECOSYS: Bringing together researchers to design ecologically-based pest management for small-scale farming systems in West Africa. Where do I sign up?
- Ecosystem governance in a highland village in Peru: Facing the challenges of globalization and climate change. Big Dairy doing for Andean crops.
- Intensive agriculture reduces soil biodiversity across Europe. What they said.
- The climate of the zone of origin of Mediterranean durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) landraces affects their agronomic performance. 4 main climatic zones, accounting for up to 30% of variation in important evaluation traits. FIGS, anyone?
- Indicators for the on-farm assessment of crop cultivar and livestock breed diversity: a survey-based participatory approach. And only 5 of them too!
Nibbles: Poor research, Salmon conservation, Hemp comeback, Fungal evolutionary history, Sugarcane field day, Urban oaks
Brainfood: Dryland protected areas, Breeding olives, Tomato cryo, Bacterial diversity, Beta diversity, Old hops, Wild strawberries, Sea bass genome, Forest management, Sorghum biomass
- The role of protected areas in supplying ten critical ecosystem services in drylands: a review. Let the communities take the lead, be inventive about governance.
- Breeding Oil and Table Olives for Mechanical Harvesting in Spain. 19,000 seedlings, 481 preselections in intermediate field trials, 31 advanced selections in a network of field trials, 1 new protected cultivar Sikitita (Chiquitita in USA).
- Phenotypic and molecular characterization of plants regenerated from non-cryopreserved and cryopreserved wild Solanum lycopersicum Mill. seeds. Oops, SSRs pick up some changes.
- Pollen Cryopreservation to Support Maintenance of a Wild Species Collection of the Genus Allium. Variable success. And no word on somaclonal variation.
- Epiphytic bacteria biodiversity in Brazilian Cerrado fruit and their cellulolytic activity potential. No fewer than 29 bacterial genera on 32 native fruits, 30% producing cellulase.
- Fine-scale spatial genetic structure of common and declining bumble bees across an agricultural landscape. Not much structure, due to queen dispersal. Declining species less diverse.
- Genetic Diversity in Remnant Swedish Hop (Humulus lupulus L.) Yards from the 15th to 18th Century. The old varieties are still there, having gone feral in abandoned yards because, unlike for 450 years until 1860, Swedish farmers are, alas, no longer obliged to grow the stuff.
- A comparison of wild and cultivated strawberries for nitrogen uptake and reduction. Some wild accessions might be better at assimilating N.
- Advances in European sea bass genomics and future perspectives. There’s a sequenced genome, but nobody’s using it.
- Genetic effects of forest management practices: Global synthesis and perspectives. There’s no excuse for not doing the right thing now.
- Exploring the variability of a photoperiod-insensitive sorghum genetic panel for stem composition and related traits in temperate environments. You can improve biomass quantity and quality simultaneously. Stem composition variability follows genetic origin.