Rangelands, Drylands & Pastoralism

Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana var. mangostana) is a popular tropical fruit, yet many aspects of its biology and evolutionary history are little known. Its origin remains contentious, although recent findings suggest G. mangostana L. var. malaccensis (Hook. f.) Nazre (synonym: G. malaccensis Hook. f.) as the sole progenitor.

Cocoa is an important commodity crop and source of income for millions of small-holder farmers. Nonetheless, questions on cocoa tree functioning, best management practices and climate change responses remain. Modelling is a powerful tool to address these questions, complementing experimental work that is expensive and time consuming due to the long productive cycle of the cocoa system.

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the staple food of more than 50% of the world’s population. Manual puddled transplanted rice (PTR) system is still the predominant method of rice establishment.

In the low fertility acid soils of the Orinoquian savannas of Colombia, Urochloa humidicola cv. Tully or Humidicola is one of the most widely planted tropical forage grasses for improving livestock productivity. Low nutritional quality of this grass limits sustainable livestock production in this region.

Agriculture is a sector that is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change while contributing to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the atmosphere.

Phosphorus (P) is one of the essential macronutrients for plant growth and development, and it is an integral part of the major organic components, including nucleic acids, proteins and phospholipids. Although total P is abundant in most soils, a large amount of P is not easily absorbed by plants.

Most social-ecological landscapes are under threat due to poor resource management compounded by the impacts of climate change. The international Water Management Institute (IWMI) employs an inclusive landscape management approach for scaling innovations to transform food systems in degraded landscapes.

Introduction: Previous research has shown increased productivity amongst sown grass pastures compared to native savanna pastures by year-round grazing for fattening of adult and young Brahman (Bos indicus)-bred cattle in the well-drained native savanna ecosystem of the Colombian Orinoquía.

In 2003, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada published “Seed that give. Participatory plant breeding,” synthesizing the achievements and lessons learned of the first 10 (pioneering) years of participatory plant breeding (PPB), a concept first tabled at an international workshop in Wageningen, the Netherlands, in 1994.