Evolutionary Applications has a Special Issue out devoted to “Evolution in Agro-Ecosystems. ” Attentive readers will spot the fact that we have already blogged about the papers on why there are no perennial grain crops and on the response of landraces to climate change. But there’s a lot more there.
Nibbles: Wild tomatoes, Brachiaria, Agroforestry, Syrian drought, Vegetable seeds, Durian
- How cool is it that a descendant of Charles Darwin is working on wild tomatoes on the Galapagos?
- More on the Brazilian “Economic Miracle.”
- Let my people plant trees on farmland!
- Trouble for Syrian agriculture.
- “The D. Landreth Seed Company has sold seeds to every president from George Washington to FDR.” And Obama?
- Views on the durian.
Charles Heiser RIP
Very sad to hear (belatedly) that Professor Emeritus Charles B. Heiser Jr. of Indiana University passed away on June 11, 2010. He was an extremely influential ethnobotanist, training many distinguished graduate students as well as having many wonderfully informative and entertaining popular books to his name.
Nibbles: CIFOR, Weeds, Camelids, Drought, Biofortification, Buckwheat
- CIFOR has a blog!
- Nice series of videos on eating weeds.
- Video on Peru’s “Andean rodeo.” You heard me.
- Africa needs drought-tolerant maize. Ok, fair enough, but here’s my question. Shouldn’t they have done this study before doing all that breeding? Oh, who knows, maybe they did.
- “Biofortification will thus remain relevant to poor rural populations in the years to come, as their incomes will still be far too low to afford a more diversified diet.” What? Who says a diversified diet need be expensive?
- Russia faces looming buckwheat crisis. At least the genetic resources are safe in the Vavilov Institute. Unless of course somebody decides to, I don’t know, build luxury villas there, or something.
Nibbles: Eggplant, Cactus domestication, Berries, Conservation, Drought, Conference, Chaffey, Rice relative, Cornus, Adansonia, Pavlovsk, Genebanks, Dams
- How can you do Eggplant’s Rich History and not wonder why this generally huge, generally purple thing is called an eggplant?
- Domestication of the Gray Ghost Organ Pipe cactus; exceedingly complex. Oh and there’s a cool photo here.
- How berries protect the brain from age-related malfunction. Are you listening, Dmitry?
- Protect medicinal plants, says letter-writer.
- The world doesn’t understand drought tolerance, says another letter-writer.
- Agrobiodiversity in Mesoamerica conference.
- Chaffey’s Plant Cuttings from Annals of Botany. Must-read stuff.
- A wild relative contributes trait for early morning flowering to rice, allowing it to escape sterility induced by high temperatures.
- The Cornelian Cherry and the Baobab explained.
- Voice of America devotes Special English report to Pavlovsk. If that ain’t viral, what is?
- Genebanks on a roll in China. In Australia, not so much.
- Dam dataset online. Let the mashups proliferate.