- Blogging machine Tom Barnett worried about effect of climate change on his favourite tipple.
- BGCI shell out for cool animation on social role of botanic gardens, and it’s totally worth it.
- As also, but differently, are IUCN’s videos on forest restoration.
- All the world’s forests, online, any day now, to monitor the opposite of their restoration.
- Europe tries to stimulate innovation in plant breeding. By holding a meeting. Ah, but there’s a hashtag.
- Development economists illustrate interesting point about gender and yam cultivation with photo of sweet potatoes.
- The organic attitude to inorganic nitrogen.
- Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers ate fish. Well I never.
- Reviews of couple books on agricultural origins.
- Need bioinformatics training? Who doesn’t.
- ICRAF reviews efforts to monitor sustainable intensification. Somewhere. I can’t for the life of me find the actual document.
Brainfood: Moroccan almonds, MAS in potato, Mexican maize market, History of agronomy, Malian querns, Hani terraces, Conservation modelling, Wild Cucumis, Pathogens and CC
- Moroccan almond is a distinct gene pool as revealed by SSR. Ok, now what?
- Molecular markers for late blight resistance breeding of potato: an update. Ok, now what?
- Reconstructing the Maize Market in Rural Mexico. Not so free after all.
- Why agronomy in the developing world has become contentious. Neoliberalism, participation and environmentalism. The answer? Political agronomy.
- Millet and sauce: The uses and functions of querns among the Minyanka (Mali). Form depends on more than just function.
- Landscape pattern and sustainability of a 1300-year-old agricultural landscape in subtropical mountain areas, Southwestern China. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
- Mathematical optimization ideas for biodiversity conservation. Fancy math works sometimes but not always. Wonder if it would work on the Hani terraces above. Or on Mexican maize for that matter.
- Mitochondrial genome is paternally inherited in Cucumis allotetraploid (C. × hytivus) derived by interspecific hybridization. Not the chlororoplast genome though. Weird. But now what?
- Migrate or evolve: options for plant pathogens under climate change. Or, indeed, both. But we need better models, and a better handle on what human interventions can do. Interestingly, pathogen diversity may well increase in some places.
Nibbles: Ag research impact, Old foods, GMOs, Barcoding, Palms (well it is Easter), Medicinal plants, Passion fruits, Markets, Livestock, Chaffey, Wine and CC, Coffee culture
- “…for many for many smallholder farmers little has changed over the decades in terms of the methods and tools they use.” Geoff Tansey would seem to agree. Nobody has told ACIAR, though.
- Cherfas favourite spread bog butter among oldest food finds.
- Why it is silly to say that GMOs are always bad.
- The Star Trek tricorder-type DNA widget comes a step closer.
- Which will make it easier to do things like working out the evolution of palms. Before it’s too late. Because of all that nasty agriculture. Anyway, read about it on page 3 of Kew Scientist, along with lots of other stuff.
- Like the taxonomy of herbal medicine, for instance, which coincidentally also comes up in a newspaper article from Australia today. Maybe some of the plants involved will go into the Kimberly Ark, whatever that is.
- Passion fruit is the next big thing in Costa Rica.
- Colombian peasant organizations go to market. Including, I bet, with passion fruits.
- Even in the struggle between man and steer, the issue is uncertain.
- Is it time for Plant Cuttings again? Thank goodness.
- I think I’ll read it with some Danish wine at my elbow. Or maybe Vietnamese coffee.
Brainfood: Coconut and climate, Cereal biofortification, Ancient tuber oat grass, Grape diversity, Shade cacao, Ancient Central Asian ag, Diversity of knowledge, Edible canna
- Climate change and coconut plantations in India: Impacts and potential adaptation gains. Seems we don’t need to worry about coconut in India. Much. Overall.
- Biofortification of cereals to overcome hidden hunger. Need to understand mineral uptake and transport mechanisms better. But once we do…
- Evaluating prehistoric finds of Arrhenatherum elatius var. bulbosum in north-western and central Europe with an emphasis on the first Neolithic finds in Northern Germany. May just have had a ritual role.
- Genetic diversity and population structure assessed by SSR and SNP markers in a large germplasm collection of grape. High diversity despite duplication. Ecogeographic groupings within the cultivated material. Genetic core more genetically diverse than phenological core, though similarly phenotypically diverse. Information will revolutionize breeding. No, not really.
- Shade Tree Diversity, Cocoa Pest Damage, Yield Compensating Inputs and Farmers’ Net Returns in West Africa. Best thing is to have a diverse shade canopy, but under 50%.
- Agricultural production in the Central Asian mountains: Tuzusai, Kazakhstan (410‐150 b.c.). Yes, agriculture. Not just pastoralism.
- Diversity of Plant Knowledge as an Adaptive Asset: A Case Study with Standing Rock Elders. Differences among individuals may be just that, rather than “lack of cultural consensus” and may be adaptive as circumstances change.
- The Origin of Southeastern Asian Triploid Edible Canna (Canna discolor Lindl.) Revealed by Molecular Cytogenetical Study. C. indica var. indica and C. plurituberosa are the proud and newly-identified parents.
Nibbles: Leaflets, IFPRI and CGIAR reamed, Locusts, Whisky, Backpacks for Africa, Yield drops, Oca, Fishy rice
- Speak French? Unaware? The Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research has leaflets for you.
- Indian writer bites the hands that feeds him. Well, somebody had to.
- Israeli eaters bite the pests that plague them.
- Debunking the mystery of whisky, the bastards. A muckle more detail here.
- Backpack Farm is in the news again. We still want to know, what’s in those backpacks, and how diverse are they.
- So you’ve been growing corn (maize) continuously and your yields are dropping precipitously? Scientists: Now we know why!
- Expert tells potato centre all about oca. Fact No. 1: it isn’t a potato.
- “Rice-fish cultivation produces environmental services.” What, in addition to rice and fish? Praise be.