- Clonal diversity and estimation of relative clone age: application to agrobiodiversity of yam (Dioscorea rotundata). Some clones are almost two thousand years old.
- Development of a cost-effective diversity-maximising decision-support tool for in situ crop genetic resources conservation. The case of cacao. Sure, you can use molecular markers and fancy maths, but in the end you’ll still need to make some judgement calls.
- Fishing in the gene pool — how useful was the catch? We have the technology. Do we have the policies?
- The Wheat Black Jack: Advances Towards Sequencing the 21 Chromosomes of Bread Wheat. See what I mean about the technologies?
- Reduction of pesticide use can increase earthworm populations in wheat crops in a European temperate region. Prince Charles will be pleased.
- Areas of Increasing Agricultural Abandonment Overlap the Distribution of Previously Common, Currently Threatened Plant Species. In Japan, abandoned farmland can be good and bad for threatened species. Damn scientists. Never a straight answer.
- Can agroforestry option values improve the functioning of drivers of agricultural intensification in Africa? Yes. But please, sir, what’s option value?
- Biodiversity through Domestication. Examples from New Guinea. What 8000 years of horticulture will do to diversity. I wonder if some yam clones go back that long.
- Establishment of the integrated applied core collection and its comparison with mini core collection in soybean (Glycine max). You lost me at integrated.
- Variability in sensory attributes in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): a first survey in the Iberian secondary diversity center. Agronomy does not correlate with taste. So you can breed for both.
Nibbles: Weeds, Poverty, Mycorrhizae, Gluten-free wheat, Vanilla, Different apples, Pashmina wool
- Oh dear, someone else has fallen for the “weeds are better for you” line, cautious question-mark notwithstanding.
- And guess what? The poor don’t buy nutritious foods. How silly of them.
- Great post explaining the great unseen: mycorrhizal fungi as drivers of plant diversity.
- Gluten-free wheat? Really (even if the links still don’t work).
- What would you video on honeymoon in Mexico? A visit to a vanilla plantation. What else?
- Conserving apples and earth apples at opposite ends of the world.
- Oh, no, pashmina’s in trouble!
Nibbles: Golden Rizzzzzz, Agronomy meet, Pricey poultry, Pricey Indian food, Target environments, NUS galore, G&T
- The Golden Rice thing rumbles endlessly on.
- I wonder whether it was discussed at the First International Agronomy Day. I bet that fertilizer thing in Malawi was.
- The world’s most expensive cock. Made you look!
- I wonder whether you can select sex in chickens like you can in cattle.
- Anyway, speaking of expensive agrobiodiversity, a celebrity economist rounds up links on Indian food price inflation. Must have seen our recent stuff on onions. But can you grow them on the roof?
- The secret of breeding? Location, location, location.
- List of “indigenous” fruits and vegetables of allegedly potential global importance without a damn scientific name anywhere. Annoying on many levels.
- Mind you, this piece on the threats faced by the wild herbs of Crete also doesn’t have any names.
- See, you can include a scientific name of an underutilized plant and not look unbearable geeky. Well, kinda. Although this press release on burgeoning collaboration on NUS manages to avoid mentioning even common names.
- Oh I so need a drink.
- And some cheese.
Brainfood: Touristic islands, Pearl millet diversity, Barley diversity, Maize diversity, Weird chickpea, Sweet potato diversity, Pawpaw diversity, Grewia domestication, Agrobiodiversity is the key, Sunflower relative dynamics
Sorry about the Brainfood hiatus lately. Back now, and with a vengeance.
- Plant genetic resources in a touristic island: the case of Lefkada (Ionian Islands, Greece). Landraces and tourism can coexist.
- Assessment of genetic diversity among pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R Br.] cultivars using SSR markers. The cultivars coming out of a given breeding programme cluster together. No!
- Population genetic structure in a social landscape: barley in a traditional Ethiopian agricultural system. Farmer management trumps even altitude.
- Environmental and social factors account for Mexican maize richness and distribution: A data mining approach. Oh no it doesn’t.
- Identification of an upright peduncle and podding genotype in chickpea germplasm conserved in the National Genebank. That’s one out of 18,873.
- Molecular, morphological and agronomic characterization of the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) germplasm collection from Mozambique: Genotype selection for drought prone regions. 6 out of 28 local genotypes are drought tolerant. No word on whether they’re yellow fleshed too.
- Genotyping a large collection of pepper (Capsicum spp.) with SSR loci brings new evidence for the wild origin of cultivated C. annuum and the structuring of genetic diversity by human selection of cultivar types. The taxonomy is ok. Human selection is reflected by genetic diversity. A quarter of the accessions can be chosen which contain 97% of the genetic diversity. In other news, France has a collection of 1,300 peppers.
- Phenotypic and Genetic Diversity of Papaya. Wild papayas from South America are closer to an allied genus than to the cultigen.
- Grewia flavescens: a potential horticultural crop? Well, maybe.
- Agricultural biodiversity as a link between traditional food systems and contemporary development, social integrity and ecological health. You need sustainable small farms tied into global markets for high value food crops and ecosystem services. Marx rolls over in his grave.
- Proximity to agriculture alters abundance and community composition of wild sunflower mutualists and antagonists. Wild relative populations nearer to cultigen have more pollinators but fewer seed and leaf munchers than those further away. Not entirely sure what that means for in situ conservation, but I’m sure it’s something.
Nibbles: Hunger, Breeds, Jatropha, Value chains, Vegetables, Temperature, Quinoa
- The Lancet waxes optimistic on hunger and poverty goals.
- Korea keen to help compile information on African livestock.
- Is there nothing Jatropha cannot do? Now it’s a carbon sink.
- Fijian ginger and Ethiopian beans; two value chains explored in the latest New Agriculturalist.
- An International Symposium on Vegetables in August 2014, with lots of interest, but as it is under the ISHS you’ll have to pay to read about it.
- “Temperature alters population dynamics of common plant pests.” Ya don’t say.
- “Help a Bolivian farmer: Eat quinoa“. Now there’s a headline with attitude.