Vegetables

October 7, 2011October 7, 2011

Heirlooms for entrepreneurs

Pollin8r (geddit?)! An “open access photo bank of heirloom produce” and “an inventive new web-based project … that promises to connect heirloom-produce loving eaters to farmers willing to grow heritage produce — all with just the click of a mouse”. Bring it on? Bring it up?

Please, sir, what is an heirloom?

October 5, 2011October 5, 2011

Nibbles: Graphic agriculture, Nutrition, Climate change, Giant pumpkins, Economic development, Roman millet, Fairtrade, Jojoba and guayule

Agriculture 101: A graphic novel. Am I the only one who thinks novels aren’t necessarily true? First installment.
Bioversity has a bunch of factsheets on Nutritious Underutilized Species.
Why is a cacao tree not like an ATM? Because the ATM still pays out when its hot.
Speaking of which, big long thought piece on Food Security and Climate Change.
Giant pumpkins; not much diversity here, except in the agronomic approaches.
Better access to markets may threaten specialist smallholder farmers. The case of Namibia.
Ancient Roman ate lots of C4 photosynthesiser: millet!
Wake up and smell the lack of green coffee.
A couple of wannabe Mexican industrial crops get some exposure.

October 3, 2011October 3, 2011

Brainfood: Rice yield, Carrot evaluation, Caper chemistry, Rice fortification, Range shifts, Baobab, Tunisian thyme, Drought-tolerant rice

Rice yields and yield gaps in Southeast Asia: Past trends and future outlook. If average farmers became like best-yielding farmers that would meet 2050 needs, except in the Philippines, where some more structural stuff is needed.
Method of evaluating diversity of carrot roots using a self-organizing map and image data. The sound you hear is that of butterflies being broken on wheels.
Bioactive compounds from Capparis spinosa subsp. rupestris. Are pretty much the same as those in subsp. spinosa.
Constitutive Overexpression of the OsNAS Gene Family Reveals Single-Gene Strategies for Effective Iron- and Zinc-Biofortification of Rice Endosperm. So that’s a good thing, right?
Analysis of climate paths reveals potential limitations on species range shifts. Corridors not the answer. Or not the only answer. Or not the full answer.
An updated review of Adansonia digitata: A commercially important African tree. Do baobab scientists not sometimes long for the Time Before Reviews, when they actually, you know, did stuff?
Genetic diversity, population structure and relationships of Tunisian Thymus algeriensis Boiss. et Reut. and Thymus capitatus Hoffm. et Link. assessed by isozymes. Dad, what’s an isozyme? Ah, son, it’s a thing people used in the Time Before DNA. The two species are different, they need to be managed in different ways.
Potential Impact of Biotechnology on Adaption of Agriculture to Climate Change: The Case of Drought Tolerant Rice Breeding in Asia. Kinda pointless: “in severe drought both the [drought tolerant] and the conventional varieties were either not planted or, if planted, did not yield”.

September 19, 2011September 19, 2011

Brainfood: Sorghum core diversity, Indian mango diversity, Montia potential, Assisted migration, Corchorus diversity, Soil DNA, Fire!, Coffee pest, Earthworms

Making life simpler for you, we have created an open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here. If you’re already using Mendeley, feel free to join the group (and use it to suggest papers we might miss). You can also discuss papers there, but frankly, we’d prefer you to do that here. Or on Facebook. Even if you don’t use Mendeley, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the group and get stuff that way. Are we cool, or what?

Variation in flowering time in sorghum core collection and mapping of QTLs controlling flowering time by association analysis. 4 QTLs and 7 loci detected under different conditions. Is that, like, a lot?
Evaluation of genetic diversity among commercial cultivars, hybrids and local mango (Mangifera indica L.) genotypes of India using cumulative RAPD and ISSR markers. Just one big happy family.
Montia fontana L. (Portulacaceae), an interesting wild vegetable traditionally consumed in the Iberian Peninsula. Aquatic herb has high fibre and lipids. High oxalate too though. Breeders enjoined to get to work. On Montia. Riiiiight.
Taking stock of the assisted migration debate. It’s REALLY complicated. Scientists are not that great at explaining it. More work needed all round. But now we have fancy diagrams.
Genetic diversity and relationships in Corchorus olitorius (Malvaceae s.l.) inferred from molecular and morphological data. Out of Africa. Ethiopia, to be exact.
Meta-barcoding of ‘dirt’ DNA from soil reflects vertebrate biodiversity. Wonder whether it works with agricultural ‘dirt.’
The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth. Entertaining gallop through the history of the use of fire to manage landscapes around the world and down the ages. Need to catch my breath here.
Some like it hot: The influence and implications of climate change on coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) and coffee production in East Africa. That title just had to come sometime, didn’t it.
A critique of earthworm molecular phylogenetics. So apparently “molecular phylogenetics is now on the verge of revolutionizing earthworm systematics.” Beyond satire.

September 13, 2011March 23, 2012

Nibbles: Gardens, Food/nutrition jargon, Photos, Pacific livestock, Durian descriptors, Oysters, Thai breeders, Meat-reducing, Gender, Chinese fortification, G20

Community veggie gardens in Cape Town.
BNSP? WTF?
AoB adds botanical picture search. Will nothing stop these guys? And meanwhile… Sheesh, is there something in the air today?
How can Pacific livestock adapt to climate change? And don’t say they should learn to swim.
How NOT to describe a durian.
The continuously imminent demise of the Chesapeake Bay oyster.
Plant breeders go on the rampage in Thailand.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall turns out not to be a made-up name. Pity.
Kenya’s agriculture increasingly depends on women. MIL unavailable for comment.
“…because our idea of “adding more” has shaped the way we treat micronutrient deficiencies through food fortification globally, trying to integrate this in China is turning out to be problematic.” I bet it is.
Montpellier G20 meeting looking for “effective and innovative research partnerships for development and better impact of research from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.” I hope they brought their pyjamas.