Category Plant breeding
Creativity comes in many flavors
Breeding soybean is a fascinating pursuit. There is always some new angle, some new tool to deploy, some new end use to target. And I value the challenge. It never gets boring. There are folks among us who are tasked with finding new uses for things… things such as soybeans. There are new spins on […]
Random thoughts
Random… as if this blog hasn’t been random enough. Today I’ll share a few things that have crossed the path over the last several days. These should touch upon science, farming, food, and living a measured life… hopefully going somewhat along the lines of the mission here. Science – several days ago I was doing […]
Farm music
Early of a morning, out in the fields, Mother Nature fills the quiet with a music of her own. Birdsong if you’re lucky, crickets otherwise. Sometime you might hear the patter of raindrops on the leaves, the pleating of a lamb, the grunting of a hog, or the crowing of a rooster. If you’d rather […]
Bravely Buzzing Big Brother Bee’s Bug Biodiversity Boudoir *
Over the last year we (the GP staff) have written about bees on several occasions. And you may be forgiven if you’d thought we’d run through the subject. I thought so. Now this story comes along, and we couldn’t resist. In the course of evaluating soybean germplasm we rely heavily on an instrument (NIRT – […]
Making crosses
After a long day in the sun, testing one’s fortitude in the hope of making something meaningful I retire to rest so that tomorrow we might try again. At work we are making crosses. Nope, not religious icons. We are crossing different strains of soybean. Beginning the process of developing new and better varieties for […]
Clem claims Climate Clever Clovers courageous – not clueless
Back in October I posted a piece on cow guts. In it I mentioned two avenues to remediation of methane evolution from ruminant guts, the methane affecting atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and global warming (a hot topic). Due credit was given to research to modify the cows through breeding, and to changing cow rations through […]
Last call for 2018
There seems to be value in reflection; where we’ve been, what we’ve done. Positive memories bring a nostalgia and warming of the heart. Negative memories call forth a resolve to learn from mistakes or guide us toward paths which avoid repeats. The turn of the year seems as good a place as any to take […]
Cows – a gut check… and the future of beer?
The North American soybean harvest of 2018 is not yet in the books. It consumes this writer and many others as perhaps it should. It may interest many that for much of the eastern parts of the North American bread basket the harvest thus far has gone fairly well, and yields have been quite good. […]
Old time farming, the future of farming, science as political ping pong ball… or Dear Jeff??
Decisions, decisions. What should these stubby fingers be typing about this evening?? Our blogging buddy at The South Roane Agrarian has dropped a gauntlet in the form of a new header photo and a weekend reading list from a rather robust agrarian library. Facing off against such a collection will require significant grit. I may […]
Gulliver's Pulse 
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