Charting the political, social, and environmental history of efforts to conserve crop diversity. Many people worry that we're losing genetic diversity in the foods we eat. Over the past century, crop varieties standardized for industrial agriculture have increasingly dominated farm fields. Concerned about what this transition means for the future of food, scientists, farmers, and eaters have sought to protect fruits, grains, and vegetables they consider endangered. They have organized high-tech genebanks and heritage seed swaps. They have combed fields for ancient landraces and sought farmers growing Indigenous varieties. Behind this widespread concern for the loss of plant diversity lies another extinction narrative that concerns the survival of farmers themselves, a story that is often obscured by urgent calls to collect and preserve. Endangered Maize draws on the rich history of corn in Mexico and the United States to uncover this hidden narrative and show how it shaped the conservation strategies adopted by scientists, states, and citizens. In Endangered Maize, historian Helen Anne Curry investigates more than a hundred years of agriculture and conservation practices to understand the tasks that farmers and researchers have considered essential to maintaining crop diversity. Through the contours of efforts to preserve diversity in one of the world's most important crops, Curry reveals how those who sought to protect native, traditional, and heritage crops forged their methods around the expectation that social, political, and economic transformations would eliminate diverse communities and cultures. In this fascinating study of how cultural narratives shape science, Curry argues for new understandings of endangerment and alternative strategies to protect and preserve crop diversity.

Australian Native Plants: Cultivation and Uses in the Health and Food Industries provides a comprehensive overview of native food crops commercially grown in Australia that possess nutritional and health properties largely unknown on a global basis. These native foods have been consumed traditionally, have a unique flavor diversity, offer significant health promoting effects, and contain useful functional properties. Australian native plant foods have also been identified for their promising antioxidant and antimicrobial properties that have considerable commercial potential. This book is divided into three parts: The first part reviews the cultivation and production of many Australian native plants (ANP), including Anise Myrtle, Bush Tomato, Desert Raisin, Davidson's Plum, Desert Limes, Australian Finger Lime, Kakadu Plum, Lemon Aspen, Lemon Myrtle, Muntries, Native Pepper, Quandong, Riberry, and Wattle Seed. It then examines the food and health applications of ANP and discusses alternative medicines based on aboriginal traditional knowledge and culture, nutritional characteristics, and bioactive compounds in ANP. In addition, it reviews the anti-obesity and anti-inflammatory properties of ANP and discusses food preservation, antimicrobial activity of ANP, and unique flavors from Australian native plants. The third section covers the commercial applications of ANP. It focuses on native Australian plant extracts and cosmetic applications, processing of native plant foods and ingredients, quality changes during packaging, and storage of Australian native herbs. The final few chapters look into the importance of value chains that connect producers and consumers of native plant foods, new market opportunities for Australian indigenous food plants, and the safety of using native foods as ingredients in the health and food sectors.

Applied Mathematics and Omics to Assess Crop Genetic Resources for Climate Change Adaptive Traits focuses on practical means and approaches to further the use of genetic resources for mitigating the effects of climate change and improving crop production. Genetic diversity in crop plants is being further explored to increase yield, disease resistance, and nutritional value by employing recent advances in mathematics and omics technologies to promote the adaptation of crops to changing climatic conditions. This book presents a broad view of biodiversity and genetic resources in agriculture and provides answers to some current problems. It also highlights ways to provide much-needed information to practitioners and innovators engaged in addressing the effects of global climate change on agriculture. The book is divided into sections that cover: The implications of climate change for drylands and farming communities The potential of genetic resources and biodiversity to adapt to and mitigate climate change effects Applications of mathematics and omics technologies Genomics and gene identification We are in the midst of significant changes in global climates, and its effects are already being felt throughout the world. The increasing frequency of droughts and heat waves has had negative impacts on agricultural production, especially in the drylands of the world. This book shares the collective knowledge of leading scientists and practitioners, giving readers a broader appreciation and heightened awareness of the stakes involved in improving and sustaining agricultural production systems in the face of climate change.

Diseases of Edible Oilseed Crops presents an unprecedentedly thorough collection of information on the diseases of cultivated annual oilseed crops, including peanut, rapeseed-mustard, sesame, soybean, sunflower, and safflower. Written by internationally recognized researchers, this book covers and integrates worldwide literature in the field up to 2014, setting it apart from other books that are only of regional importance. The book focuses on major diseases of economic importance to each crop. Each chapter is devoted to a type of crop and a profile of affecting diseases according to geographical occurrence, epidemiology, symptoms, causal pathogens, host-pathogen interactions, biotechnological aspects, and the latest approaches to understanding host-pathogen interactions. It also includes discussions on developments on controversial subjects in research in order to stimulate thinking and further conversation with an eye toward improvements and resolutions. Research on oilseed crop diseases has expanded tremendously in the past 30 years, primarily as an effort to reduce losses to various stresses, including crop diseases. In the war against hunger and malnutrition, it is necessary to enhance and update knowledge about crop diseases and managing them. By compiling decades of information from previously scattered research into a single globally minded volume, Diseases of Edible Oilseed Crops provides these much-needed updates and enhancements.

Increased world population, decreased water supply, and climate change all put stresses on the global food supply. An exploration of the challenges and possible solutions to improve yields of the main crops, such as cereals, roots, tubers, and grasses, Omics Technologies and Crop Improvement reviews data on food sciences and omics. The book covers modern omic technologies such as nutrigenomics and metagenomics. It provides a detailed examination of how omics can help crop science and horticulture and introduces the benefits of using these technologies to increase crop yields and other features such as resistance and nutritional values. The book highlights crop improvements such as increased yield, drought resistance, disease resistance, and value-added performance through a non-transgenic format. It explores how the different omics technologies, especially the most recent ones (proteomics, metabolomics, nutrigenomics, ionomics, and metagenomics) would be used to improve the quantitative and qualitative features of crop plants. Topics covered include: Advances in omics for improved fresh crops Transcriptome analyses on the drought response using drought tolerant near isogenic lines Metabolite profiling that reveals different effects of nitrogen amendments on vegetables Omics technology application to forage crops improvement Secondary metabolites and plant tissue culture RNAi technology and crop improvement Gene expression analysis methods with NGS data Web database resources and crops improvement Gene Expression Networks (GEN) in crops Specific crop improvement (papaya, wheat, coffee, potato, and more) With contributions from pioneering researchers from twelve countries, the book presents a broad view of how omics would help crop science and horticulture meet the challenges of a shrinking global food

Following the successful first edition, this revised and greatly expanded edition Tomato Diseases: Identification, Biology and Control is the definitive work on the diseases and disorders of the tomato. The tomato is the world's most widely produced vegetable. The number of diseases affecting the tomato is enormous: hundreds of bio-aggressors, more than 50 non-parasitic diseases, plus new and alarmingly frequent emerging diseases. Despite considerable progress to curb these diseases, they remain a constant threat to crops, often causing considerable damage. In such a context, the identification, detection, knowledge and control of these diseases-symptoms often can be very similar-are challenges that this book will help overcome. Containing more than 900 color photos, the book consists of two main parts. The first is designed as a diagnostic tool, allowing the reader to alternate between the observation of the diseased plant, environmental questions, and the prioritization of differential diagnoses. The second part comprises numerous information sheets detailing the characteristics of most tomato pathogens, geographic distribution, impact on production, types of symptoms, and life history of the plant. This section also describes the range of plant protection and disease resistance measures currently available. This unique volume is a comprehensive overview of the latest scientific knowledge on parasitic and non-parasitic tomato diseases worldwide. It will address the needs of tomato producers and keen gardeners, as well as those of researchers, teachers and their students.

Though plant cells are separated by cell walls, cells maintain their identity as they are delimited by semi-permeable membranes that permit them to function as autonomous units. The flow of materials in and out of the cell is regulated by channels, transporters, pumps, and acquaporins in these membranes. The cytoplasm is sandwiched between two membranes: the plasma membrane, which forms the outer boundary of the cytoplasm, and the tonoplast or the vacuolar membrane which forms the inner boundary. Cell membranes serve several different functions: form boundaries and provide compartmentalization, site of chemical reactions catalyzed by membrane proteins, regulate the exchange of ions/compounds across the barrier, site of perception/transmission of signals (hormones), and act in cell-to-cell communication. The membrane functions are affected by different abiotic (biotic stress not discussed), nutritional, edaphic and mechanical stresses, which have been discussed in this volume in light of the recent literature

With genetically modified crops we have entered uncharted territory--where visions of the triumph of biotechnology in agriculture vie with dire views of medical and environmental disaster. For two years Mark L. Winston traveled this fraught territory at home and abroad, listening to farmers, industry spokespeople, regulators, and researchers, canvassing high-security laboratories, environmentalist enclaves, and cyberspace, making a thorough survey of the facts, opinions, and practices deployed by opponents and proponents of transgenic crops.

Through his sympathetic portrayal of the passions on all sides, Winston brings a clear, unbiased perspective to this bewildering landscape. Traveling with Winston, we see the excitement and curiosity that pervade laboratories developing genetically modified crops, as well as the panic and outrage among dedicated opponents of agricultural biotechnology; the desperation of conventional farmers as they look to science for solutions to the problems driving them from their farms, as well as the deeply held values of organic farmers who dread the incursion of genetically modified crops into their expanding enterprise. And, Winston shows us, these contrasting attitudes transcend national borders, with troubling counterparts and consequences in the developing world.

As he seeks a middle ground where concerns about genetic engineering can be rationally discussed and resolved, Winston gives us, at long last, a full and balanced view of the forces at play in the chaotic debate over agricultural biotechnology.

J.G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labour unions and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields." The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s,drained one of America's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world. Indeed, the sophistication of Boswell's agricultural operation -from lab to field to gin - is unrivaled anywhere.Much more than a business story, this is a sweeping social history that details the saga of cotton growers who were chased from the South by the boll weevil and brought their black farmhands to California. It is a gripping read with cameos by a cast of famous characters, from Cecil B. DeMille to Cesar Chavez.

'Transgenic Crop Protection' explores chiefly scientific issues regarding the development of pest and disease resistant crops using genes transferred from other sources. One paper looks at the impact of transgenic crops on non-target species and the final two papers discuss the social implications of this science.

Soil bioventing is one of the most popular modern techniques for removing contaminants from soil. It has recently emerged as one of the most cost-effective and efficient technologies available for vadose zone remediation of petroleum-contaminated sites. This book explains in practical terms how to carry out a bioventing program. It is an interdisciplinary treatment of the subject, covering everything from basic physical and chemical properties of soils to site evaluation, project design, and post-bioventing monitoring.
The wide breadth of coverage makes Soil Bioventing useful to a large audience, including consulting firms, students, contractors, environmental managers, and anyone who is responsible for supervision of soil cleanup for regulatory reasons.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The purpose of this book is to assess a variety of economic issues as they relate to agro-biodiversity and show how addressing these issues can assist in agro-biodiversity policy-making. This is illustrated using empirical data from some of the countries (Ethiopia, Nepal and Zambia) which are part of the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative. The empirical chapters apply the relevant economic methods, including regression analysis, choice experiments, hedonic pricing, contingent valuation and farm business income analysis. The authors discuss the economics of managing crop diversity on-farm in the context of crop variety attribute preferences, farmers' perception of agro-biodiversity loss, and value addition and marketing of the products of traditional crop varieties. The case studies include detailed analysis of traditional varieties of groundnut, maize, rice, sorghum, and teff. The results are relevant not only to GRPI countries but also to other countries concerned with the sustainable utilization of these resources. Overall, the studies illustrate how genetic resources issues can be integrated into rural development interventions.

This book includes 20 different chapters, where the authors have addressed various aspects of the cultivation, taxonomy, socio-economic importance and breeding and development as applied to neglected and underutilized crops. The first chapter deals with the more general aspects of the cultivation and propagation of these crops, thirteen chapters concentrate on specific neglected crops, nine of which focus on seed propagated crops and the remaining four on vegetatively propagated ones, while the last five chapters describe the uses, importance, propagation and improvement of neglected and under-utilized crops from different regions of the world.

Research data is expensive and precious, yet it is seldom fully utilized due to our ability of comprehension. Graphical display is desirable, if not absolutely necessary, for fully understanding large data sets with complex interconnectedness and interactions. The newly developed GGE biplot methodology is a superior approach to the graphical analysis of research data and may revolutionize the way researchers analyze data. GGE Biplot Analysis: A Graphical Tool for Breeders, Geneticists, and Agronomists introduces the theory of the GGE biplot methodology and describes its applications in visual analysis of multi-environment trial (MET) data and other types of research data.

The text includes three parts: I) Genotype by environment interaction and stability analysis, II) GGE biplot and multi-environment trial (MET) data analysis, and III) GGE biplot software and applications in analyzing other types of two-way data. Part I presents a comprehensive but succinct treatment of genotype-by-environment (G x E) interaction in order to provide an overall picture of the entire G x E issue and to show how GGE biplot methodology fits in. Part II describes and demonstrates the numerous utilities of a GGE biplot in visualizing MET data. Part III describes the "GGE biplot" software and extends its application to the analysis of genotype by trait data, QTL mapping data, diallel cross data, and host by pathogen data. Altogether, this book demonstrates that the GGE biplot methodology is a superior data-visualization tool and allows the researcher to graphically extract and utilize the information from MET data and other types of two-way data to the fullest extent.

GGE Biplot Analysis makes this useful technology accessible on a wider scale to plant and animal breeders, geneticists, agronomists, ecologists, and students in these and other related research areas. The information presented here will greatly enhance researchers' ability to understand their data and will make a significant contribution toward helping to meet the challenges of food production and food security that currently face the world. Readers will be amazed to see how much more they can extract from their data by implementing the new and easily understood GGE biplot methods presented here and will soon agree that any delay in using this technique is a loss to their research achievement.

Mr. Faulkner's masterpiece is recognized as the most important challenge to agricultural orthodoxy that has been advanced in this century. Its new philosophy of the soil, based on proven principles and completely opposed to age-old concepts, has had a strong impact upon theories of cultivation around the world. It was on July 5, 1943, when Plowman's Folly was first issued, that the author startled a lethargic public, long bemused by the apparently insoluble problem of soil depletion, by saying, simply, ""The fact is that no one has ever advanced a scientific reason for plowing."" With the key sentence, he opened a new era.For generations, our reasoning about the management of the soil has rested upon the use of the moldboard plow. Mr. Faulkner proved rather conclusively that soil impoverishment, erosion, decreasing crop yields, and many of the adverse effects following droughts or periods of excessive rainfall could be traced directly to the practice of plowing natural fertilizers deep into the soil. Through his own test-plot and field-scale experiments, in which he prepared the soil with a disk harrow, in emulation of nature's way on the forest floor and in the natural meadow, by incorporating green manures into its surface, he transformed ordinary, even inferior, soils into extremely productive, high-yield croplands.Time magazine called this concept ""one of the most revolutionary ideas in agriculture history."" The volume is being made available again not only because farmers, ranchers, gardeners, and agriculturists demanded it, but also because it details the kind of ""revolution"" which will aid those searching for the fruits of the earth in the emerging nations.

Pesticides continue to provide an important tool in integrated pest management (IPM) programmes. Hitherto IPM programmes have had a strong bias towards insect control, but farmers need to control weeds, plant pathogens and other pest problems.This book follows the author's successful "pesticide application methods" by relating the equipment needs to the overall pest control requirement of major crops. It outlines the pest problems against which farmers are using pesticides and focusses on the details of the application techniques they need to optimise pesticide use.Much attention is now being given to genetically modified crops, but these do not necessarily avoid the use of pesticides. Some are engineered to be resistant to certain herbicides, so the use of these herbicides will still require careful application in order to minimise environmental side effects. Similarly, crops engineered for resistance to certain insect pest species may remain susceptible to other pests, thus emphasising the need for crop monitoring and careful use of any chemicals to avoid disrupting biological control.

English summary: A collection of scientific articles on Italian efforts to limit microfungal infections and contamination in cereal production and products. Italian text. Italian summary: M.G. D'Egidio, A. Visconti, A Ersilio Desiderio E. Brugna, Il bando Miglioramento qualitativo delle produzioni cerealicole in relazione alla presenza di micotossine e il Progetto Valutazione e controllo della contaminazione da micotossine nelle produzioni cerealicole nazionali (MICOCER) E. Desiderio, Obiettivi e articolazioni del progetto interregionale MICOCER C. Brera, F. Debegnach, B. De Santis, E. Pannunzi, C. Berdini, E. Prantera, M. Miraglia, Validazione di metodi immunoenzimatici per la determinazione delle micotossine in campioni di cereali M. Pascale, M. Haidukowski, A. Visconti, G. Aureli, M.G. D'Egidio, E. Desiderio, L. Plizzari, M. Corbellini, Confronto tra metodi ELISA e HPLC per la determinazione del deossinivalenolo (DON) in frumento tenero e duro G. Aureli, M.G. D'Egidio, A. Belocchi, E. Desiderio, Monitoraggio delle produzioni nazionali di frumento duro per la presenza di deossinivalenolo (DON) L. Plizzari, A. Brandolini, E. Desiderio, Monitoraggio della presenza di deossinivalenolo (DON) nella granella di frumento tenero A. Verderio, N. Berardo, A. Ferrari, P. Lagana, C. Lanzanova, A. Pietri, Le micotossine nelle produzioni italiane di mais E. Desiderio, G. Aureli, D. Conti, G. Mazzieri, M. Pascale, A. Belocchi, M. Fornara, Percorsi produttivi per la prevenzione della contaminazione da deossinivalenolo (DON) nel frumento duro M. Blandino, A. Reyneri, M. Pascale, M. Haidukowski, M. Corbellini, L. Plizzari, G. Mazzieri, D. Scudellari, Percorsi produttivi per la prevenzione della contaminazione da deossinivalenolo nel frumento tenero A. Reyneri, M. Blandino, A. Bondi, G. Colombari, T. Mancuso, A. Pietri, Percorsi produttivi per la prevenzione delle micotossine nel mais G. Piva, A. Pietri, A. Gallo, Micotossine: fattore limitante nelle produzioni animali

Sustainable Use of Nanoparticles in Agriculture explores the specific challenges of understanding and applying the catalytic efficacy of nanotechnology for agricultural crop improvement. Focusing specifically on the nanomaterial-based metal organic frameworks as single atom catalysis to improve their applicability through innovations in the makeup, style and structure of those catalysts. Nano-nutrition is the implementation of nanotechnology to provide nano-sized nutrients to grow crops addressing both biotic and abiotic nutrients. As abiotic nutrients or NPs are obtained from inorganic substances such as salts, they post challenges as many of these are un-biodegradable whereas biotic nutrients are made from organic sources that are biodegradable and eco-friendly. This book presents research into nano-nutrition that has been undertaken to create a methodology for improving plant nutrition that is sustainable and effective. Sustainable Use of Nanoparticles in Agricultures focuses on utilizing nano-nutrition to improve plant productivity in both micro-and macronutrients on a wide scale without environmental risks. This book is an important reference for researchers and academics seeking insights into the potential means to improve crop plant health.