Do you like your agricultural scientific research sumarised in easily digestible form or described at length in mind numbing detail? Oh, OK, nevermind; how about this then? Have you ever asked yourself what happens to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal mediated phosphate supply when stressed plants stop supplying sugar-like carbon molecules to the fungi? No? Seriously? Nevertheless, buckle up and welcome to the School of Biology at Leeds University, West Yorkshire. Eee by gum, ey up, etc.

Michael makes a couragous attempt at humour, based on the marvelous premise that AMF (the phosphate supplying fungi) sounds a bit like EMF (the 90s band), but Paul doesn't understand what's happening and it falls a bit flat. We alienate another potential sponsor and the cats continue to carry the show.

Links

The main paper; Charters, M.D., Sait, S.M. and Field, K.J., 2020. Aphid herbivory drives asymmetry in carbon for nutrient exchange between plants and an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus. Current Biology, 30(10), pp.1801-1808. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30294-3

Great judge of character, Professor Katie Field on The Infinite Monkey Cage, with Professor Brian Cox and popular fungus botherer Dr Merlin Sheldrake (not kidding). https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fwww6q

EMF doing their thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfCLt0kTd5E&list=RDsfCLt0kTd5E&start_radio=1

The Swiss work on how AMF protects maize against pathogenic fungi. Lutz, S., Bodenhausen, N., Hess, J., Valzano-Held, A., Waelchli, J., Deslandes-Hérold, G., Schlaeppi, K. and van der Heijden, M.G., 2023. Soil microbiome indicators can predict crop growth response to large-scale inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Nature Microbiology, 8(12), pp.2277-2289. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-023-01520-w

The British Society of Soil Science webinar with Dr Anne Bhogal and Professor Richard Bardgett; see proper scientists putting themselves out there and talking to normal people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RggdJPe6nio Don't tell Professor Bardgett (eminent respected academic, titan in his field, behemoth, etc), but Paul thinks that the evidence that biodiversity (species richness) causes agroecosystem productivity is weak, because he's been thinking about it for almost a year now.

The paper about soil and bacteria and fungi and that sort of thing. Howe, J.A., McDonald, M.D., Burke, J., Robertson, I., Coker, H., Gentry, T.J. and Lewis, K.L., 2024. Influence of fertilizer and manure inputs on soil health: A review. Soil Security, 16, p.100155. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667006224000297

The it's-a-network paper that shows unstressed plants transfering extra Carbon to AMF, which makes up for neighbouring stressed plants being a bit crap. Durant, E., Hoysted, G.A., Howard, N., Sait, S.M., Childs, D.Z., Johnson, D. and Field, K.J., 2023. Herbivore-driven disruption of arbuscular mycorrhizal carbon-for-nutrient exchange is ameliorated by neighboring plants. Current Biology, 33(12), pp.2566-2573. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30294-3

Bored with multi species pastures episodes? Welcome to North America dear listener and a research paper that is definitely not about multi species pastures (although they get a mention in the intro). No spoilers, but it's proper science done by proper scientists.

As well as the science, Michael reveals that he is a High Noon guy, Paul admits a life long obsession with Katy Jurado and Black Cat disgraces himself on mike (on microphone, not on Michael).

Links

Jim and Stan's paper. Polston, J.E. and Glick, S.D., 2011. *****-******* context preference following ******* conditioning in ****. Behavioral neuroscience, 125(4), p.674. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3144275/

Carbon Calling 2023. Nikki Yoxall (head of research at Pasture for Life and regenerative farmer), Amy Hughes (podcaster and AHDB engagement lead for beef and lamb), Claire Whittle (regenerative consultant and vet) and Sarah Langford (author, lawyer and farmer) talk about their experiences within the agriculture sectors and being in leadership roles. They are brilliant. They say things that need saying and say them with clarity and passion. Boys and men who work in agriculture really need to listen to this. It basically finishes at 49 minutes and 50 seconds; no need for anyone to listen after that. So, just turn it off at that point. That's 49 minutes and 50 seconds. Please. Carbon Calling Panel

It's outdoor lambing in the old west. Katy Jurado plays Michael Blanche checking his ewes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFxwq33rVAs&list=RDhFxwq33rVAs&start_radio=1

Katy Jurado gives Grace Kelly an acting class in High Noon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo_CKWb8eJY

And then does the same with Gary Cooper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6dmg07VBcg

We’re staying in Ireland for Episode 2 and talking about a research paper that looks at four different pasture types (permanent pasture, perennial ryegrass, a six species mixture and a twelve species mixtures) under grazing. They measured yields, nutritive value and how plant species persisted and it’s all fascinating stuff (it helps, if you keep telling yourself that).

There’s more. Paul cries at a boat. Michael reveals his Joel Williams man-crush. And there’s four jokes.

Here are the links.

First things first; a link to a biograph of Fridtof Nansen. There’s loads of stuff about him on the interweb, but this one also gets you into The Polar Exploration Museum website (where the boat is). https://frammuseum.no/polar-history/explorers/fridtjof-nansen-1861-1930/

The main paper

Shackleton, J., Boland, T.M., Kennedy, J., Grace, C., Beaucarne, G., Kirwan, S.F., Schmidt, O. and Sheridan, H., 2024. Annual and seasonal dry matter production, botanical species composition, and nutritive value of multispecies, permanent pasture, and perennial ryegrass swards managed under grazing. Grass and Forage Science, 79(4), pp.630-650. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gfs.12691

This is the Dee et al (2023) paper about how diversity (species richness) affects yields in grasslands. It's probably behind a paywall, but essentially they look at previous studies, take confounding factors into account, and integrate the results to get to a conclusion, which is; "Contrary to many prior studies, we estimate that increases in plot-level species richness caused productivity to decline: a 10% increase in richness decreased productivity by 2.4%.”

Dee, L.E., Ferraro, P.J., Severen, C.N., Kimmel, K.A., Borer, E.T., Byrnes, J.E., Clark, A.T., Hautier, Y., Hector, A., Raynaud, X. and Reich, P.B., 2023. Clarifying the effect of biodiversity on productivity in natural ecosystems with longitudinal data and methods for causal inference. Nature Communications, 14(1), p.2607. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37194-5

Here’s the Raedts and Langworthy plantain paper. It’s behind a paywall. Sometimes if you Google the title, you can find a free copy on the interweb somewhere. If not, go to the next one.

Raedts, P. and Langworthy, A., 2018. Establishing plantain in spring in existing perennial ryegrass pastures in northern Tasmania. Animal Production Science, 60(1), pp.114-117. https://www.publish.csiro.au/AN/AN18575

This is the open access paper on establishing plantain.

Bryant, R.H., Dodd, M.B., Moorhead, A.J., Edwards, P. and Pinxterhuis, I.J., 2019. Effectiveness of strategies used to establish plantain into existing pastures. Journal of New Zealand Grasslands, pp.131-138. https://www.nzgajournal.org.nz/index.php/JoNZG/article/view/406/63