140 / SEEDWORLD.COM DECEMBER 2017 Exploring ideas and views on all aspects of the seed industry. SOIL HEALTH PARTNERSHIP ENROLLS 4,000-PLUS ACRES The Soil Health Partnership (SHP), is a soil health program aimed at determining the economic, yield and environmental benefits of farm practices such as cover crops, nutrient management and reduced tillage. The initiative has enrolled 111 farms across 12 states. SHP is evaluating conservation practices on farms using plots from 20 acres to 80 acres in size. Together the plots cover just over 4,000 acres. Most farms are corn and soybean operations although several also have wheat in rotation, grow seed crops or have livestock or dairy. The non-government program aims to provide long-term, farm- specific data insights including soil lab reports, midseason aerial imagery and profitability and ROI analysis. The program receives financial support from Monsanto, NCGA, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, The Walton Family Foundation, General Mills and the Midwest Row Crop Collaborative. CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS BUMBLE BEES New research from a team of researchers headed by Florida State University postdoctoral researcher Jane Ogilvie is helping explain the link between a changing global climate and a dramatic decline in bumble bee populations worldwide. For some bumble bees, a changing climate means there just aren’t enough good flowers to go around. “Declining bumble bee populations should be a warning about the expansive detrimental effects of climate change,” Ogilvie says. “Bumble bees have annual life cycles, so their populations show responses to change quickly, and many species live in higher altitude and latitude areas where the change in climate is most dramatic. The effects of climate change on bumble bees should give us pause.” On the surface, these climatic changes may seem like a boon to bumble bees — a longer flowering season might suggest more opportunity for hungry bees to feed. However, the researchers found that as snow melts earlier and the flowering season extends, the number of days with poor flower availability increases, resulting in overall food shortages that are associated with population decline. While this research helps confirm the long- presumed connection between climate change and bumble bee population decline, the findings also indicate a more difficult path for conservationists than previously anticipated. ANCIENT POTTERY REVEALS SORGHUM’S ORIGIN The earliest evidence of wild sorghum comes from short-lived hunter and gatherer camps in the Sahara dating to roughly 7,500 BCE. Traces of the earliest evidence of domesticated sorghum were found in fourth millennium BCE pottery fragments from the southern Atbai region in eastern Sudan where sorghum was used as temper or an additive to clay. Dorian Fuller, archaeobotany professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, found the pottery at a site called KG23. The site is associated with several Neolithic cultures in Sudan. Covering roughly 30 acres, the site was occupied from about 3,500 BCE to 2,500 BCE based on radiocarbon dating. The ancient environment around KG23 was wetter than it is today, with a small seasonal river nearby and alluvial soils suitable for crop cultivation. Evidence uncovered in KG23’s rubbish dumps indicates it was inhabited year around. Evidence of the earliest known domesticated sorghum dates to 2,000 – 1,700 BCE and was found in India. Domesticated sorghum did not appear again in Sudan until the later part of the first millennium BCE. Fuller says the domestication process for grains often took around two to three thousand years