The Botanical Society of the British Isles is to relaunch its journal as the New Journal of Botany. It’ll be published by Maney Publish and available via Ingenta Connect. We wish them the best of luck. (link)

How far can a gene disperse? Historical and contemporary gene dispersal can be estimated from spatial genetic structure and paternity analysis, and Rong et al. (pp. 285–296) find that an estimate of gene flow in Daucus carota ssp. carota based on contemporary pollen dispersal is much larger than an estimate of historical flow. The results [...]

Thomas’ Plant-Related Blog comments on the possibility that perennial grains could produce crops in harsh climates, based on recent research published in Science.

Many of us involved in plant sciences are looking at ways to improve crop productivity by 5%, 7% or maybe even 10%. Although not focusing on the details of plant breeding, Annals of Botany has numerous papers on domestication, genes which improve crop yields, physiology which gives more robust yield, and uses of nitrogen or [...]

Amazon have announced the latest iteration of their Kindle e-reader, which will cost £109 ($139) for a WiFi only model or £149 ($189) for a reader with 3G access that allows you to connect to the internet – if there’s a signal. It follows the iPad which sells for £429 ($499) for the WiFi model [...]

When in flooded soil, soybean, Glycine max, produces aerenchyma and hypertrophic stem lenticels. Shimamura et al. (pp. 277–284) investigate the oxygen dynamics in these tissues and find that hypertrophic lenticels on the stem of soybean, just above the water surface, are entry points for O2, and these connect to aerenchyma and enable O2 transport into [...]

Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire, shows the power of evolutionary explanations by taking a plant’s eye view of agriculture. It’s not just the content that I like, the presentation style is worth examining too. The talk is definitely more in the style of a naked Yoda than Darth Vader. It’s lacking details, [...]