Darwin's Harvest
Title | Darwin's Harvest PDF eBook |
Author | Timothy J. Motley |
Publisher | Columbia University Press |
Pages | 408 |
Release | 2006-01-04 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 9780231508094 |
Darwin's Harvest addresses concerns that we are losing the diversity of crop plants that provide food for most of the world. With contributions from evolutionary biologists, geneticists, agronomists, molecular biologists, and anthropologists, this collection discusses how economic development, loss of heirloom varieties and wild ancestors, and modern agricultural techniques have endangered the genetic diversity needed to keep agricultural crops vital and capable of adaptation. Drawing on the most up-to-date data, the contributors review the utilization of molecular techniques to understand crop evolution. They explore current research on various crop plants of both temperate and tropical origin, including maize, sunflower, avocado, sugarcane, and wheat. The chapters in Darwin's Harvest also provide solid background for understanding many recent discoveries concerning the origins of crops and the influence of human migration and farming practices on the genetics of our modern foods.
What Darwin Didn't Know
Title | What Darwin Didn't Know PDF eBook |
Author | Geoffrey Simmons |
Publisher | Harvest House Publishers |
Pages | 322 |
Release | |
Genre | |
ISBN | 0736936726 |
The Harvest of the Years
Title | The Harvest of the Years PDF eBook |
Author | Luther Burbank |
Publisher | |
Pages | 384 |
Release | 1927 |
Genre | Gardeners |
ISBN |
Translational Genomics for Crop Breeding, Volume 2
Title | Translational Genomics for Crop Breeding, Volume 2 PDF eBook |
Author | Rajeev Varshney |
Publisher | John Wiley & Sons |
Pages | 274 |
Release | 2013-09-13 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 1118728378 |
Genomic Applications for Crop Breeding: Abiotic Stress, Quality and Yield Improvement is the second of two volumes looking at the latest advances in genomic applications to crop breeding. This volume focuses on advances improving crop resistance to abiotic stresses such as extreme heat, drought, flooding as well as advances made in quality and yield improvement. Chapters examine advances in such key crops as rice, maize, and sugarcane, among others. Genomic Applications for Crop Breeding: Abiotic Stress, Quality and Yield Improvement complements the earlier volume on biotic stressors and will be an essential purchase for those interested in crop science and food production.
Tropical Root and Tuber Crops, 2nd Edition
Title | Tropical Root and Tuber Crops, 2nd Edition PDF eBook |
Author | Vincent Lebot |
Publisher | CABI |
Pages | 543 |
Release | 2019-12-02 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 178924336X |
Root and tuber crops are important to agriculture, food security and income for 2.2 billion people in developing countries. These species produce large quantities of dietary energy and have stable yields under difficult environmental conditions. This second edition of Tropical Root and Tuber Crops is an authoritative treatment of four important root and tuber crops: cassava. sweet potato, yams, and aroids.
Handbook of Bioenergy Crop Plants
Title | Handbook of Bioenergy Crop Plants PDF eBook |
Author | Chittaranjan Kole |
Publisher | CRC Press |
Pages | 876 |
Release | 2012-03-22 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 1439816840 |
As the world’s population is projected to reach 10 billion or more by 2100, devastating fossil fuel shortages loom in the future unless more renewable alternatives to energy are developed. Bioenergy, in the form of cellulosic biomass, starch, sugar, and oils from crop plants, has emerged as one of the cheaper, cleaner, and environmentally sustainable alternatives to traditional forms of energy. Handbook of Bioenergy Crop Plants brings together the work of a panel of global experts who survey the possibilities and challenges involved in biofuel production in the twenty-first century. Section One explores the genetic improvement of bioenergy crops, ecological issues and biodiversity, feedstock logistics and enzymatic cell wall degradation to produce biofuels, and process technologies of liquid transportation fuels production. It also reviews international standards for fuel quality, unique issues of biofuel-powered engines, life-cycle environmental impacts of biofuels compared with fossil fuels, and social concerns. Section Two examines commercialized bioenergy crops, including cassava, Jatropha, forest trees, maize, oil palm, oilseed Brassicas, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, and switchgrass. Section Three profiles emerging crops such as Brachypodium, diesel trees, minor oilseeds, lower plants, Paulownia, shrub willow, sugarbeet, sunflower, and sweet potato. It also discusses unconventional biomass resources such as vegetable oils, organic waste, and municipal sludge. Highlighting the special requirements, major achievements, and unresolved concerns in bioenergy production from crop plants, the book is destined to lead to future discoveries related to the use of plants for bioenergy production. It will assist in developing innovative ways of ameliorating energy problems on the horizon.
The Cambridge World History: Volume 2, A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE–500 CE
Title | The Cambridge World History: Volume 2, A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE–500 CE PDF eBook |
Author | Graeme Barker |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 808 |
Release | 2015-04-16 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1316297780 |
The development of agriculture has often been described as the most important change in all of human history. Volume 2 of the Cambridge World History series explores the origins and impact of agriculture and agricultural communities, and also discusses issues associated with pastoralism and hunter-fisher-gatherer economies. To capture the patterns of this key change across the globe, the volume uses an expanded timeframe from 12,000 BCE–500 CE, beginning with the Neolithic and continuing into later periods. Scholars from a range of disciplines, including archaeology, historical linguistics, biology, anthropology, and history, trace common developments in the more complex social structures and cultural forms that agriculture enabled, such as sedentary villages and more elaborate foodways, and then present a series of regional overviews accompanied by detailed case studies from many different parts of the world, including Southwest Asia, South Asia, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Europe.