- Development of microbial consortia as a biocontrol agent for effective management of fungal diseases in Glycine max L. Bacteria gang up to fight soya fungal pathogens. Ain’t diversity grand.
- Species richness of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi: associations with grassland plant richness and biomass. More symbiotic fungi, more plant species and more biomass. Ain’t diversity grand.
- Trees in a deforested tropical landscape: species and trait diversity and potential ecosystem services. Even isolated exotics provide services, for all their lack of biodiversity conservation value.
- Green Light for Green Agricultural Policies? An Analysis at Regional and Global Scales. Model suggests that biodiversity targets for EU farmland lead to externalities paid for by others.
- Exploring restoration options for habitats, species and ecosystem services in the European Union. Target degraded habitats in cheap countries to meet most targets at lowest costs.
- How common is homoploid hybrid speciation? Not very. Thank heavens for the other kind.
- Explaining the ‘hungry farmer paradox’: Smallholders and fair trade cooperatives navigate seasonality and change in Nicaragua’s corn and coffee markets. Fair trade farmers still endure 3 hungry months, but having fruit trees helps.
- Drivers of plant biodiversity and ecosystem service production in home gardens across the Beijing Municipality of China. More edibles and fewer ornamentals with increasing distance from central Beijing. But probably still not enough to meet demand.
- Genetic polymorphism of fifteen microsatellite loci in Brazilian (blue-egg Caipira) chickens. Blue eggs?
- Indigenous chicken genetic resources in Kenya: their unique attributes and conservation options for improved use. And not a single blue egg in sight. Conservation through use.
- Lathyrus diversity: available resources with relevance to crop improvement – L. sativus and L. cicera as case studies. Genotyping and core collections needed.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of black Dahe pig based on DNA sequences analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear genes. Not much diversity in this Chinese pig. No word on their presence in Beijing homegardens.
- Associations between polymorphisms of the GFI1B gene and growth traits of indigenous Chinese goats. Polymorphic sites associated with growth traits. Let the molecular breeding begin. No word on whether same possible for pigs.
- Worldwide Patterns of Ancestry, Divergence, and Admixture in Domesticated Cattle. Cattle came into Europe in at least 2 waves, one from the Middle East, one from W Africa via Spain. The Asian breeds are something else again, and were involved in only the former of those waves.
- Effect of coconut water and growth regulator supplements on in vitro propagation of Corylus avellana L. One fruit helps conservation of another.
Nibbles: City farming, Yeast diversity, Fungal taxonomy, Ankole cattle, Fruit breeding, Goat improvement, Private hunger, Vietnam cacao, Sequencing life, Old vegetables, Cola politics, Lugar Center, Wither biofuels, Plant breeder award, Amateur potato breeding
- “Fifteen to twenty percent of the world’s food is produced through urban farming, involving an estimated 800 million people.”
- We shaped yeasts as much as they shaped us. Now to sort out their nomenclature, along with the rest of the benighted fungal kingdom.
- Cheese is just one way yeasts shaped us. What kind of cheese can you make from Ankole milk, I wonder.
- Sean Myles tells us how his lab “makes food better.”
- Tan Sonstegard of USDA tells us how ADAPTMap can make goats better. Skip to 2 mins in, if you want to avoid adorable footage of cute (human) kids. I love a nice bit of goat cheese.
- Can the private sector help combat hunger and malnutrition? Gee, I dunno, do tell me.
- Vietnamese chocolate comes of age. Someone mention the private sector?
- Gene jockeys take over world. World surrenders.
- What did the Elizabethans ever do for us? Well, they grew funky vegetables for one thing.
- Both Colas sign up to FAO guidelines that “protect the rights of poor and vulnerable people to land, livelihoods and food security.” But is it all marketing?
- The Lugar Center has a bunch of bibliographic resources for researchers.
- Biofuels? Bah, humbug.
- Jorge Dubcovsky, a professor of plant sciences at the University of California–Davis, snags another award.
- “Are you all converts to the cause of backyard potato breeding?” Do tell. And so we come full circle.
Nibbles: Rural income sources, Medicinal trees, Saffron, Biofuel trees, Trout genome, Maize & drugs in Mexico, Bee-keeping, Urban ag, Food security, Jackfruit, SDG2015
- Natural areas just as important for rural incomes as crops.
- Because of things like medicinal plants, among others.
- Not if the crop was saffron, though. Or multi-purpose biofuels?
- Trout gets the genome treatment. I prefer it grilled with a little butter and parsley.
- High maize prices good for one thing. Wanna guess?
- Guerrilla bee-keepers in the Rust Belt.
- Maybe they’ll be discussed in tomorrow’s tweetathon: Urban Food Security +SocialGood.
- Brussels sprouts too, maybe: it’s urban agriculture, Jim, but not as we know it.
- Another view on NatGeo’s five steps to food security. (Here’s Luigi’s.)
- The key thing NatGeo left out: jackfruit.
- Well, that, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. Of course.
Nibbles: Hawaii research farms, Disneyland dates, Sumerian beer, Danish beer, Hipster foods, Wheat rust, Salmon farming, Quinoa pix, Asparagus cost, Llama evacuation, Japanese hemp, Awards
- “You can trace the genetic makeup of most corn grown in the U.S., and in many other places around the world, to Hawaii.” There’s a GMO angle, but that’s frankly the least interesting thing about this.
- Disneyland protects really old date palm. Sweet.
- “A Hymn to Ninkasi.” Sumerian beer 101.
- Bronze Age beer: not quite as old as Sumerian, but still…
- Hipsters told to stop worrying about beer, among other foody things.
- They should worry about wheat rust though.
- And salmon.
- And quinoa, of course. Pictorial taster for a forthcoming, restricted Harper’s feature.
- The true cost of Peruvian asparagus is also kinda worrying. Those poor hipsters.
- But Peru has other stuff to worry about, like active volcanoes and llamas.
- “In haiku poetry… key words describing the stages of cannabis cultivation denoted the season when the poem is set.” Oh, I’m researching that, and no mistake.
- Nominations sought for World Food Prize and Wangari Maathai Award.
Nibbles: Mainstream MAS, ICRISAT breeding, History of hunger, Specialty crops, Biofortification, Collectivizing smallholders, Fake seeds, Good seeds, Maize diversity, Making palm oil, Space ag, Cacao and CC, Cassava and CC, Cherry phenology, CC adaptation, Flavour gene, Indian apples, GBIF data, EU force feeding petition, BRITE, Sir Hans Sloane, Silk Road, Banana realism
- Round-up of stuff that’s been accumulating over past few days because we were busy putting food on the table.
- Marker assisted selection of tomatoes makes it to Washington Post. When will African crops do the same?
- “The history of humanity is a history of hunger.” Maybe MAS of African crops will help.
- USDA money for minor crops. Including African crops?
- Nigerian minister of agriculture on biofortification. Of African crops.
- African smallholders need to get together. They have nothing to lose but their chains. And their fake seeds. Which is not a problem for their Central American brethren.
- Someone mention Central America? Listen to a talk on maize diversity therein. And at the other end of the region’s diversity spectrum: oil palm.
- NASA wants to grown stuff in space. Organically, of course. African smallholders nonplussed.
- In space, nobody can hear you riot over food prices.
- Saving cacao from climate change: The colloquium. We’ve had cassava. Cherries next?
- Hold everything: there’s a framework for this business of crop diversity and climate change.
- Deconstructing strawberry flavour. Apples next? Not sure Indian farmers will care much.
- GBIF wants you to tell them how your data should be licensed. And some background.
- You can lobby the EU on fois gras. If that’s your thing.
- If you’re in Vancouver on May 6, you can celebrate five years of the Biodiversity Research: Integrative Training and Education (BRITE) Internship Program.
- You can also intern at Globefish, which links global fish-trade information networks comprising 85 countries.
- Great Great Lives podcast on Sir Hans Sloane, whose connections with agricultural biodiversity are multiple.
- Something else whose connections with agrobiodiversity are many, though this could have been highlighted more in the article in question: the Silk Road.
- What’s the late Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s connection to crop diversity?