Crop diversity defies concerns in Ethiopia as small farms blend old and new species over millennia.
Tag - agriculture
Alun Salt
A.I. Assistant
Pigging-out* on soy
The environmental advantages of plant-based food are overshadowed by the ethical quandary posed by genetically-modified soybean.
Nigel Chaffey
Getting to the bottom of plant nutrition
The use of human excrement as plant fertiliser is gaining popularity as a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly alternative to synthetic fertilisers.
The seed sleuth, forensic botany goes veggie
The Seed Detective: Uncovering the secret histories of remarkable vegetables by Adam Alexander, 2022. Chelsea Green Publishing UK. What do you think of when seed banks are mentioned? Perhaps Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank...
A coffee with the founding mothers of the Women in Crop Science initiative
They say you can't be what you can't see, so meet the women showing that you can make it in Crop Science.
Michela Osnato
The future of sweet corn turns sour
Heat during flowering damages the kernels before they develop.
Dale Maylea
Pathogens can’t hide under the covers
Research published in Phytobiomes shows that cover crops could help improve the health of crops.
When looking after pollinators is literally a matter of self-interest
Hand pollination is a surprisingly common form of pollination in global commercial crop production, including for some economically important plants.
Cereal thriller brings home the bacon*
Amber Waves: The extraordinary biography of wheat, from wild grass to world megacrop by Catherine Zabinski 2020. The University of Chicago Press. Biographies are usually written about people. However, Catherine...
Final course: ‘Coffee’… *
Or, rather, something to ponder as you finish your meal, maybe with a coffee. Whatever your food(s) of choice, you need the right equipment – e.g. teeth – to cope with it (unless it’s a liquid or intravenously...
Making soy better
Avid readers of the Botany One blog will no doubt be aware of The Story of Soy. Written by Christine du Bois it makes the compelling case for the global importance of that crop plant. But, as productive and globally...
Dark soils are the shadow of hidden agriculture
Stains left in the soil from past farmers, and the plants they cultivated, are helping illuminate prehistoric inhabitants of the Amazon.
Taking Glycine to the max!
The Story of Soy by Christine du Bois 2018. Reaktion Books Ltd. Before encountering Christine du Bois’ book, The Story of Soy, I had little real idea about what soy was. OK, as a botanist I know it was a legume, Glycine...
The increasingly fluid Silk Road
What would you imagine was carried along the Silk Road(s), that ancient route that connected the far-East to the near-East and Europe? Silks? Well, yes, and spices, etc. (and not forgetting traffic in infectious human...
