The CROPS 2015 conference on Improving Agriculture Through Genomics in on. Actually it’s almost finished. Sorry. But you can read about the keynote. And follow what’s left on Twitter. Maybe someone will explain what’s wrong with China’s soybeans.
For all the soybeans in China
There’s a chart in last week’s issue of The Economist that really got my attention. Here it is:
What in tarnation has been happening to soybean production in China? It looks really bad, especially compared to what’s happening to the other crops. And it’s important. Soybeans are now a big proportion of overall food imports.
So is it that Chinese farmers are just growing less of the crop? Well, FAOStat says no, it’s that yields have been stagnating of late:
But this is a problem that, for example, the US and Brazil seem not to be having. It’s not as if Chinese breeders and gene-jockeys aren’t trying. And they have plenty of genetic diversity available. So what’s going on? Maybe one of our readers can explain.
Early modern maize
There’s a controversy brewing over whether it is Shakespeare or Drake holding an ear of maize on the frontispiece of Gerard’s Herbal. But what I really want to know is what’s that other thing in his right hand.
Brainfood: Prunus hybrids, Wild potato gaps, Agroecology & CC, German orchard loss, Downy mildew in millet, Googling birds, Legume genetic resources
- Development of a New Hybrid Between Prunus tomentosa Thunb. and Prunus salicina Lindl.. Prunus just keeps on giving.
- Ex Situ Conservation Priorities for the Wild Relatives of Potato (Solanum L. Section Petota). 32 out of 73 species, mostly in Peru.
- Agroecology and the design of climate change-resilient farming systems. Forget monocultures, go for “…crop diversification, maintaining local genetic diversity, animal integration, soil organic management, water conservation and harvesting…”
- Patterns and Drivers of Scattered Tree Loss in Agricultural Landscapes: Orchard Meadows in Germany (1968-2009). It’s all about the bottom line.
- New Sources of Resistance to Multiple Pathotypes of Sclerospora graminicola in the Pearl Millet Mini Core Germplasm Collection. 62 of 238 accessions resistant to at least 2 of 8 pathotypes tested.
- Searching for backyard birds in virtual worlds: Internet queries mirror real species distributions.
Searches for common names of birds correlated with bird population densities. Wonder if same applies to (some) plants. - Legume Crops Phylogeny and Genetic Diversity for Science and Breeding. 6 tribes, 13 genera, a million accessions. But are we making the most of them?
Palmyra’s grapes
Remember our discussion of Ruoppolo’s grapes? You know, the ones with the weirdly shaped berries and the confused synonymy? Well, something looking remarkably similar has just turned up in a tweet featuring a photo of a carving from Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site under threat in Syria.
The grapes of wrath – beautiful stone carving in #Palmyra #Syria – @UNESCO World Heritage Site under threat pic.twitter.com/Nnaq6lFtHO
— Matthew Ward Hunter (@HistoryNeedsYou) May 15, 2015
Strangely-shaped grapes obviously go back a long way.