- The CGIAR Consortium finds a CGIAR success story. While the Guardian does another.
- Talk on honeybee diversity at UC Davis. Hopefully Robert will be available for comment. Meanwhile, across the Pond…
- Seeing the food security for the trees.
- Yeah I’m just not sure it’s such a good idea to name a new avocado variety Uzi, no matter how good it may be.
- Deconstructing the global land rush. And here’s the data… Jatropha everywhere.
- The deep roots of globalization. Move over jatropha.
- More on that paper on how to recognize a relatively drought-tolerant species.
- All tangled up in natural fibres.
- How to read organic agriculture debates. Just in case you actually want to read them.
- An Indian prepares for the Convention on Biological Diversity‘s meeting in Hyderabad in October. Not too early, is it?
- Bean breeders! Funding alert! You have nothing to lose but your diversity.
- India posts world record rice harvest — using System of Rice Intensification. Take that, doubters.
Brainfood: Alfalfa, Date palm, Apricot, Collecting, Reintroduction, Ribes, Payments
- Assessment of genetic diversity among alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) genotypes by morphometry, seed storage proteins and RAPD analysis. Morphology fits with geography, the others don’t.
- Insights into the historical biogeography of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) using geometric morphometry of modern and ancient seeds. Analysis of seed outlines using fancy maths identifies centres of diversity and migration routes.
- Loss of genetic diversity as a signature of apricot domestication and diffusion into the Mediterranean Basin. Or you could use microsatellites. Result: an Irano-Caucasian centre of domestication and two migration routes, N and S of the Mediterranean.
- Big hitting collectors make massive and disproportionate contribution to the discovery of plant species. Therefore, fund a small number of expert collectors in the right places. Luigi stands ready.
- Success Rates for Reintroductions of Eight Perennial Plant Species after 15 Years. Are pretty pathetic. Makes you wonder if all that collecting is worth it.
- Conservation of endemic insular plants: the genus Ribes L. (Grossulariaceae) in Sardinia. Seems rather a fuss for 1 species and 1 subspecies, crop wild relatives or not.
- Indicator-based agri-environmental payments: A payment-by-result model for public goods with a Swedish application. Hang on a minute, why is crop diversity not there?
Nibbles: Urban cows, Nutrition conference, Island conservation, Chaffey, Uganda rice collecting, Heirloom prize tomato, Metrics, Investing
- Breeding cows for cities. What about the ones that are already there? Oh and happy birthday, Susan!
- Nutritionists meet. Will they discuss diversity?
- Conservation on islands: Bermuda and Malta.
- Plant Cuttings. Rejoice.
- Rice collected in Uganda to be in the ITPGRFA’s Multilateral System. Was there ever a doubt?
- ‘Amish Destor’ tomato wins big.
- Metrics for Biodiversity is not about what you imagine it ought to be about. (So why link to it? To keep ’em honest.)
- Investing in natural alternatives offers excellent returns … and for agriculture?
Nibbles: Occupy Dixie, Occupy Agriculture, Occupy America, Occupy Africa, Occupy Subsidies, Occupy CWR, Occupy African prehistory, Occupy Rye.
- He turns around in wonder, and what do you think he sees? The Georgia militia eating goober peas! Listen in full.
- Military-style rabble occupy the farm.
- Not to be outdone, China is buying up American agriculture, in many ways.
- Which is fine, because Israel to help US improve African agriculture. Africa not available for comment.
- Don’t talk to me about subsidies. Bad calories cheaper than good nutrition. Doh!
- Talk to me about this very pretty article on Crop Wild Relatives and their Potential for Crop Improvement instead.
- West Africans understood how to do that. Blog about search for the origins of West African agriculture.
- Move aside quinoa and family farming; Estonia wants 2016 to be The Year of Rye.
Brainfood: Lupin restoration, Balkan wheat drought tolerance, Metabarcoding, Wild sheep genetics, Organic vegetables, Diversity protects, Sorghum geneflow, Wild sunflower genetics
- A Molecular and Fitness Evaluation of Commercially Available versus Locally Collected Blue Lupine Lupinus perennis L. Seeds for Use in Ecosystem Restoration Efforts. Commercial seed sources can be dodgy, and that’s a problem.
- Comparison of responses to drought stress of 100 wheat accessions and landraces to identify opportunities for improving wheat drought resistance. 20 Balkan landraces seemed to be more drought tolerant than 80 accessions sourced globally.
- Towards next-generation biodiversity assessment using DNA metabarcoding. You gotta be kidding me, metabarcoding? Will they be applying it to soils? Yep.
- Selection and microevolution of coat pattern are cryptic in a wild population of sheep. You need to look at the genes.
- Will they buy it? The potential for marketing organic vegetables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetable safety: A choice experiment study in three West African cities. Not enough.
- Plant diversity improves protection against soil-borne pathogens by fostering antagonistic bacterial communities. Chalk another one up to diversity. Did they say soil?
- Local scale patterns of gene flow and genetic diversity in a crop–wild–weedy complex of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) under traditional agricultural field conditions in Kenya. Mostly crop-to-wild, which could be a problem if transgenics are ever grown. If.
- Adaptation with gene flow across the landscape in a dune sunflower… is leading to “ecological” speciation.