Category: Vegetables

• Learning from the Ancient Maya: Conservation of the Culture and Nature of the Maya Forest. Teaching forest gardening, before it’s too late.
• Genetic Diversity of Bangladeshi Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) over Time and Across Seedling Sources. Downward trend in time, but no difference between growers and nurseries.
• Plum Cultivars in Sweden: History and Conservation for Future Use. From 70 varieties in nurseries, to 45 in the genebank.
• Integration of expert knowledge in the definition of Swiss pear core collection. Let stakeholders choose a few, it won’t make too much of a difference to the overall diversity, and they’ll be pleased.
• Can agricultural intensification help to conserve biodiversity? A scenario study for the African continent. Land sparing is better for biodiversity and food production.
• Influence of experimental design on decentralized, on-farm evaluation of populations: a simulation study. Replicate populations of interest rather than controls, and environments.
• Botanicals used for cosmetic purposes by Xhosa women in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. 16 plants, 14 families, bark the most common component, skin complexion the most common use.
• Droughts, Biodiversity, and Rural Incomes in the Tropics. More access to natural biodiversity means smaller effect of drought during the growing season on income from crops.
• A global surveillance system for crop diseases. Could be extended to other threats to crop diversity?
• A data-driven approach improves food insecurity crisis prediction. Market data, rainfall, geography and demography predict food insecurity at village level in near real time.
• Rapid detection of stressed agricultural environments in Africa under climatic change 2000–2050 using agricultural resource indices and a hotspot mapping approach. Increasing trouble for Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and to a lesser extent Ethiopia. But will biodiversity, disease monitoring and food insecurity prediction help?
• Kavalactones and Flavokavins Profiles Contribute to Quality Assessment of Kava (Piper methysticum G. Forst.), the Traditional Beverage of the Pacific. High-throughput HPTLC will do the job.
• Transcriptome and organellar sequencing highlights the complex origin and diversification of allotetraploid Brassica napus. 6 genetic groups: Winter rapeseed in Europe and America, Rutabaga, Spring rapeseed, Siberian kale, Winter rapeseed in East Asia, and Winter rapeseed in Europe and South Asia. No evidence of multi-origin.
• Parallels between natural selection in the cold‐adapted crop‐wild relative Tripsacum dactyloides and artificial selection in temperate adapted maize. Artificial selection for temperate adaptation in maize involved the same genes as natural selection for temperate adaptation in Tripsacum.