Search Results for: earthworms

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Nibbles: Desert garden, Funding, Vegetables, Communication, Ecosystem services, Bees, Native grasses, Soil, Raspberries, Ancient ag trade, Soybeans, Ag origins

“See how beautiful you can make with small water!” IRRI redux. The problems of vegetable production in Africa, in microcosm. “This is a local production, storage and distribution system, a huge exhibit of biodiversity.’’ PNAS special issue on ecosystem services. Bee books. Switch to switchgrass. More than you probably want to know about earthworms. Evil …

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A history of viruses

We’re fond of reminding ourselves here that agrobiodiversity isn’t just crops and livestock and their wild relatives — it’s also pests and pathogens and weeds and pollinators and earthworms and brewer’s yeast. It’s one of our leitmotifs. Another is that agricultural and “wild” biodiversity interact. Here’s a paper that kind of brings these two leitmotifs …

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The value of organic farming

Organic farming again today. I’ve come across two papers from opposite ends of the world on this subject which it may be worth discussing together. The first, from New Zealand, describes an experimental attempt to put a value on the ecosystem services provided by different pieces of arable land near Canterbury. That’s interesting – and …

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