Identification of research to improve the efficiency of breeding strategies for white clover in Australia - a review

A major challenge faced by today's white clover breeder is how to manage resources within a breeding program. It is essential to utilise these resources with sufficient flexibility to build on past progress from conventional breeding strategies, but also take advantage of emerging opportunities from molecular breeding tools such as molecular markers and transformation. It is timely to review white clover breeding strategies. This background can then be used as a foundation for considering how to continue conventional plant improvement activities and complement them with molecular breeding opportunities. In this review, conventional white clover breeding strategies relevant to the Australian dryland target population environments are considered. Attention is given to: (i) availability of genetic variation, (ii) characterisation of germplasm collections, (iii) quantitative models for estimation of heritability, (iv) the role of multi-environment trials to accommodate genotype-by-environment interactions, (v) interdisciplinary research to understand adaptation to dryland environments, (vi) breeding and selection strategies, and (vii) cultivar structure. Current achievements in biotechnology with specific reference to white clover breeding in Australia are considered, and computer modelling of breeding programs is discussed as a useful integrative tool for the joint evaluation of conventional and molecular breeding strategies and optimisation of resource use in breeding programs. Four areas are identified as future research priorities: (i) capturing the potential genetic diversity among introduced accessions and ecotypes that are adapted to key constraints such as summer moisture stress and the use of molecular markers to assess the genetic diversity, (ii) understanding the underlying physiological/morphological root and shoot mechanisms involved in water use efficiency of white clover, with the objective of identifying appropriate selection criteria, (iii) estimation of quantitative genetic parameters of important morphological/physiological attributes to enable prediction of response to selection in target environments, and (iv) modelling white clover breeding strategies to evaluate the opportunities for integration of molecular breeding strategies with conventional breeding programs.

Iberian and Latin American Music Scholarship on the Ascent: Reflections from the United States

In the early twentieth century, musicology was established as an academic discipline in the United States. Nonetheless, with the exception of Iberian medieval and Renaissance repertories, U.S. scholars largely overlooked the music of the Spanish- and Portuguese- speaking world. Why should this have been the case, especially in light of Spain’s strong historical presence in the United States? This autobiographical essay examines this question by tracing the career of an individual musicologist, the Hispanist musicologist Carol A. Hess. Evaluated here are disciplinary shifts in U.S. musicology —methodological, philosophical, and ideological— over the past thirty years. These transformations have combined to make this repertory a viable field of study today. Musicologists in the United States can now make their careers by specializing in Iberian and Latin American music, as well as the music of the Hispanic diaspora. They research topics ranging from the avant-garde composer Llorenç Barber to the rapper Nach Scratch or the popular bandleader Xavier Cugat and his U.S. audiences of the 1940s, while others also pursue the time-tested areas of medieval and Renaissance music. Iberian and Latin American music is regularly offered in postsecondary institutions while instructors now have a variety of textbooks and other pedagogical resources from which to choose. All add up to a disciplinary freedom that would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago.

In the mix : a collection of writing from around the world.

Ofrece una rica diversidad de textos de varios países y continentes, entre ellos Afganistán, Irak, Japón y Ruanda. Nos ayudan a entender quiénes somos y de dónde venimos en la actual comunidad global. Los textos se organizan en cuatro secciones temáticas: personas y relaciones; violencia, guerra y muerte; libertad personal y tradiciones culturales. Iincluye textos de Simon Armitage, Zlata Filipovic, Nadine Gordimer, Roger McGough, Beverley Naidoo y Nichols Gracia.

A sketch of the Talmud : the world renowned collection of Jewish traditions

by Isidor Kalisch