Organic Seed Production and Saving

Organic Seed Production and Saving PDF Author: Bryan Connolly
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603583548
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
The skills of seed saving are vital for small organic food producers and the whole of agriculture. Farmers and gardeners need to be able to produce their seeds as a basic, inalienable way to control their means of production. Part of the NOFA guides. Includes information on: Strengths and limitations of hybrid varieties Before you grow the seed (selecting varieties, saving seed and improving crops, intellectual property rights) Growing seed (pollination biology, harvesting, cleaning, storage, germination testing) Details on individual crops (amaranth, crucifers, beets and chard, lettuce, cucurbits, corn and small grains, nightshades, root veggies) Plus detailed appendices including more info on seed cleaning, seed companies, and more.

Memory Seed

Memory Seed PDF Author: Stephen Palmer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
There is one city left, and soon that will be gone, for the streets of Kray are crumbling beneath a wave of exotic and lethal vegetation as it creeps south, threatening to wipe out the last traces of humanity. In the desperate struggle for survival most Krayans live from day to day, awaiting salvation from their goddesses or the government. Only a few believe that the future might lie in their own hands. Zinina, having fled from the Citadel, determined to discover what secrets are buried beneath it... Arrahaquen, daughter of a member of the all-powerful Red Brigade, whose privileged position makes her insurgency all the more dangerous... Graaf-lin, channelling the prophecies of the Eastcity serpents and racing against time to infiltrate the city's computer networks before they collapse... And a man, deKray, whose sudden appearance accompanies a startling sequence of events... Set in a world both deadly and fascinating, the 25th anniversary edition of Memory Seed is a compelling first novel which brought a powerful new voice to science fiction. "Memory Seed flowers into a very convincing and entertaining first novel. The sense of location is particularly well realised, with the wretched overrun streets, the lost quarters of the city and the impinging ruin depicted particularly vividly... This attractive voice, coupled with a complex and fascinating plot and a simple but stylish book design, makes Memory Seed a notable debut novel." -SFX "The exotic horticulture is as inventive as anything in Aldiss' classic Hothouse, and parallels with present environmental concerns aren't bludgeoned home... Palmer is a find." -Time Out "Memory Seed is a speculative novel of the distant future that extrapolates many of today's environmental and New Age concerns into an enjoyable thriller about human survival against the odds. Stephen Palmer has concocted a beguiling adventure that draws on some of the best sf of recent years for its basic themes, yet also adds just as much to the genre's melting-pot of ideas." -Starburst

Gathering

Gathering PDF Author: Diane Ott Whealy
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780615457741
Category : Conservationists
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Presents the biography of the conservationist who began the Seed Savers Exchange with her ex-husband in order to save seeds passed down through generations and maintain horticultural diversity.

Cultural Memory and Biodiversity

Cultural Memory and Biodiversity PDF Author: Virginia D. Nazarea
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816525478
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Seed and gene banks have made great strides in preserving the biological diversity of traditional agricultural plant species, but they have tended to ignore a serious component: the knowledge about those crops and methods of farming held by the people who have long raised them. Virginia Nazarea now makes a case for preserving cultural memory along with biodiversity. By exploring how indigenous people farm sweet potatoes in Bukidnon, Philippines, she discovers specific ways in which the conservation of genetic resources and the conservation of culture can support each other. Interweaving a wealth of ecological and cognitive data with oral history, Nazarea details a "memory banking" protocol for collecting and conserving cultural information to complement the genetic, agronomic, and biochemical characterization of important crops. She shows that memory banking offers significant benefits for local populationsÑnot only the preservation of traditional knowledge but also the maintenance of alternatives to large-scale agricultural development and commercialization. She also compares alternative forms of germplasm conservation conducted by a male-dominated hierarchy with those of an informal network of migrant women. Cultural Memory and Biodiversity establishes valuable guidelines for people who aspire to support community-based in situ conservation of local varieties. Perhaps more important, it shows that the traditional methods of local farmers are often as important as the "advanced" methods encouraged by advocates of modernization.

Seeds of Resistance, Seeds of Hope

Seeds of Resistance, Seeds of Hope PDF Author: Virginia D. Nazarea
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816599076
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Food is more than simple sustenance. It feeds our minds as well as our bodies. It nurtures us emotionally as well as physically. It holds memories. In fact, one of the surprising consequences of globalization and urbanization is the expanding web of emotional attachments to farmland, to food growers, and to place. And there is growing affection, too, for home gardening and its “grow your own food” ethos. Without denying the gravity of the problems of feeding the earth’s population while conserving its natural resources, Seeds of Resistance, Seeds of Hope reminds us that there are many positive movements and developments that demonstrate the power of opposition and optimism. This broad collection brings to the table a bag full of tools from anthropology, sociology, genetics, plant breeding, education, advocacy, and social activism. By design, multiple voices are included. They cross or straddle disciplinary, generational, national, and political borders. Contributors demonstrate the importance of cultural memory in the persistence of traditional or heirloom crops, as well as the agency exhibited by displaced and persecuted peoples in place-making and reconstructing nostalgic landscapes (including gardens from their homelands). Contributions explore local initiatives to save native and older seeds, the use of modern technologies to conserve heirloom plants, the bioconservation efforts of indigenous people, and how genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been successfully combated. Together they explore the conservation of biodiversity at different scales, from different perspectives, and with different theoretical and methodological approaches. Collectively, they demonstrate that there is reason for hope.

Organic Seed Production and Saving

Organic Seed Production and Saving PDF Author: Bryan Connolly
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603583548
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Get Book

Book Description
The skills of seed saving are vital for small organic food producers and the whole of agriculture. Farmers and gardeners need to be able to produce their seeds as a basic, inalienable way to control their means of production. Part of the NOFA guides. Includes information on: Strengths and limitations of hybrid varieties Before you grow the seed (selecting varieties, saving seed and improving crops, intellectual property rights) Growing seed (pollination biology, harvesting, cleaning, storage, germination testing) Details on individual crops (amaranth, crucifers, beets and chard, lettuce, cucurbits, corn and small grains, nightshades, root veggies) Plus detailed appendices including more info on seed cleaning, seed companies, and more.

The Seed Keeper

The Seed Keeper PDF Author: Diane Wilson
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571317325
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakhóta family’s struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most. Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn’t return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato—where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they’ve inherited. On a winter’s day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband’s farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron—women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools. Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors.

Oak Seed Dispersal

Oak Seed Dispersal PDF Author: Michael A. Steele
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421439018
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
Theimer, an accomplished ecologist.

Advances in Seed Priming

Advances in Seed Priming PDF Author: Amitava Rakshit
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811300321
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Most crop plants grow in environments that are suboptimal, which prevents the plants from attaining their full genetic potential for growth and reproduction. Stress due to abiotic and biotic agents has a significant effect on world food production. Annually, an estimated 15% of global yields are lost, but this figure belies far greater losses for specific food systems and the people whose existence is dependent upon them, particularly in developing countries. Current efforts to mitigate these losses are worryingly over-reliant on the use of sophisticated and costly chemicals /measures with substantial economic and environmental costs, or on the development of efficient and smart crop varieties, which can take decades. What we need is a broad range of safe, robust and equitable solutions for food producers. One under-investigated approach is that of utilizing the crop plant’s innate immune system to resist stress. More specifically, the innate immune system can be sensitized or ‘primed’ to respond more quickly and strongly to protect the plant against stresses. However, a strategy of employing priming in combination with reduced pesticide use can enhance protection, and help to meet commitments to reducing chemical inputs in agriculture. This book discusses in detail different segments of priming in addressing stress factors and traits to increase competitiveness against all odds. Adopting a holistic and systematic approach, it addresses priming to counter climate-change related adverse effects coupled with pest and pathogen related stress on the productivity of crops utilizing natural resources to reap sustainable environmental, economic and social benefits for potential productivity of crops, maintaining synergy between soil, water and plants in ways that mimic nature.

Handbook of Plant and Crop Physiology, Third Edition

Handbook of Plant and Crop Physiology, Third Edition PDF Author: Mohammad Pessarakli
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466553286
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1034

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Book Description
Continuous discoveries in plant and crop physiology have resulted in an abundance of new information since the publication of the second edition of the Handbook of Plant and Crop Physiology, necessitating a new edition to cover the latest advances in the field. Like its predecessors, the Third Edition offers a unique, complete collection of topics in plant and crop physiology, serving as an up-to-date resource in the field. This edition contains more than 90 percent new material, and the remaining 10 percent has been updated and substantially revised. Divided into nine parts to make the information more accessible, this handbook covers the physiology of plant and crop growth and development, cellular and molecular aspects, and production processes. It addresses the physiological responses of plants and crops to environmental stresses, heavy metals, and agrichemicals; presents findings on small RNAs in response to temperature stress; and discusses the use of bioinformatics in plant/crop physiology. The book deals with the impacts of rising CO2 levels and climate change on plant/crop growth, development, and production. It also offers guidance on plants and crops that can be successfully cultivated under more stressful conditions, presented in six chapters that examine alleviation of future food security issues. With contributions from 105 scientists from 17 countries, this book provides a comprehensive resource for research and for university courses, covering plant physiological processes ranging from the cellular level to whole plants. The content provided can be used to plan, implement, and evaluate strategies for dealing with plant and crop physiology problems. This edition includes numerous tables, figures, and illustrations to facilitate comprehension of the material as well as thousands of index words to further increase accessibility to the desired information.

Seed Dispersal and Frugivory

Seed Dispersal and Frugivory PDF Author: Douglas John Levey
Publisher: CABI
ISBN: 085199525X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
This book provides information on the historical and theoretical perspectives of biodiversity and ecology in tropical forests, plant and animal behaviour towards seed dispersal and plant-animal interactions within forest communities, consequences of seed dispersal, and conservation, biodiversity and management.