- The croissant explained.
- Belgian beer in trouble. That can’t be good.
- And not only beer.
- Some people held out against agriculture.
- NY Public Library shares ton of digital images, including of agriculture.
- Still got an hour to spare after that? Check out this podcast on tea in China.
Nibbles: Canadian genebank, Indian women farmers, Coconut videos, Willow catalog, Crop models & CC, Next GR, Caviar of Cantaloupes, Wild Bactrian, Dog history, Top 100 development questions
- Video of the Canadian genebank.
- First video in series on Indian women farmers: Bowing to No One, by Sarah Khan.
- Whole bunch of coconut videos. See what I did there?
- Good news for cricketers: willow variety catalog out.
- The skinny of what crop models say about the effects of climate change. Spoiler alert: it ain’t good.
- The latest call for a new Green Revolution.
- Safe to say cantaloupes won’t feature much in that, which is a pity.
- Maybe some other weird plants will, though.
- Wild camels are pretty tough. And since we’re on the subject, what’s a heritage animal breed?
- Wait, they solved dog domestication?
- Top 100 development research questions for our SDG world, including ten on food security and agriculture.
Brainfood: Grazing, Dung beetles, Intensification, Pineapple diversity, Grassland N
- Behavioural Response of Pure Ankole and Crossbred (Ankole x Holstein) Cows to Seasonal Pasture Variations in Southwestern Uganda. The cross-bred cows have to eat for longer than the local breed, which makes for problems during both wet and dry seasons.
- Functionally rich dung beetle assemblages are required to provide multiple ecosystem services. It’s not just about the dung removal. No word on whether cross-bred dung tastier.
- Swiddens under transition: Consequences of agricultural intensification in the Amazon. Intensification without diversification is going to be a problem.
- Developing single nucleotide polymorphism markers for the identification of pineapple (Ananas comosus) germplasm. High redundancy in the USDA collection, and little correspondence between horticultural classifications and genotyping.
- Grassland biodiversity bounces back from long-term nitrogen addition. Pollution bad for grassland biodiversity, stopping pollution good for grassland biodiversity.
Nibbles: Roots & tubers, Vegetables, Baobab sorbet, Grapevine breeding, Landscapes, CC & ag
Brainfood: Honeybee miscegenation, Cowpea shoots & leaves, Iberian goats, CIP fingerprinting, Seed networks, Early rice, Date palm genome, Pollinator services, Bananapocalypse
- Population structure of honey bees in the Carpathian Basin (Hungary) confirms introgression from surrounding subspecies. The Hungarian honeybee is holding its own. For now.
- Genetic Variability and Heritability Estimates of Nutritional Composition in the Leaves of Selected Cowpea Genotypes [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.]. Something else you can breed for.
- The Southwestern fringe of Europe as an important reservoir of caprine biodiversity. Local goat breeds in Spain and Portugal have few numbers, but much diversity, though in general weakly structured.
- Are you getting what you ordered from your genebank? Fingerprinting of the clonal potato and sweetpotato collections at the International Potato Center. Ahem. Maybe not.
- Seed exchange networks and food system resilience in the United States. Let my seeds go!
- Barnyard grasses were processed with rice around 10000 years ago. Rice had to fight it out with other wetland grasses to get domesticated.
- Whole genome re-sequencing of date palms yields insights into diversification of a fruit tree crop. Independent history in North Africa and the Middle East, but unclear if because of separate domestications or migration westward and introgression with local wild populations. Fruit colour genes the same as in oil palm.
- Pollinator conservation — The difference between managing for pollination services and preserving pollinator diversity. The point is that there’s a difference.
- Worse Comes to Worst: Bananas and Panama Disease—When Plant and Pathogen Clones Meet. TR4 is a single clone.