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Science & experiments: history of agriculture

16 topics: Columella and Roman agricultural knowledge; Qimin Yaoshu: agricultural knowledge in northern China; Agronomy in al-Andalus: Ibn al-Awwam and…

Columella and Roman agricultural knowledge: c. 60–65 CE · De re rustica, Roman Italy · Mediterranean connections. Twelve books on crops, animals, processing and labour, read as the prescriptions of an estate owner.
Qimin Yaoshu: agricultural knowledge in northern China: c. 533–544 CE · conventionally c. 540, Northern China · the Yellow River plains. Soil management, seed selection, livestock and processing in a major source for the history of Chinese farming.
Agronomy in al-Andalus: Ibn al-Awwam and agricultural knowledge: 11th–12th centuries; compendium probably late 12th century, Toledo, Seville and Aljarafe, al-Andalus; present-day Spain. Treatises, gardens and canals: medieval agricultural knowledge and the limits of historical reconstruction.
Lyon and the rise of veterinary education: 4 August 1761 authorisation; teaching from 1762, Lyon, France; subsequently Alfort and a European school network. Bourgelat’s school organised knowledge about farm animals, combining practice, anatomy and the needs of agriculture and government.
Rothamsted since 1843: fields that became a scientific archive: 1843: Broadbalk established; first harvest in 1844, Rothamsted, Harpenden, England, United Kingdom. Crop yields, soil samples and weather observations kept across generations in long-term field experiments.
The silkworm crisis and Pasteur’s investigations: 1840s–1870s; Pasteur’s investigations 1865–1870, Alès and the Cévennes, southern France; European and Asian sericulture networks. A husbandry crisis connected mulberry farming with research on infection. Examining parents and identifying egg batches helped limit pébrine.
The Morrill Act of 1862: Colleges, Experiments and Agricultural Extension: 2 July 1862; institutional development through 1914, United States; federal legislation in Washington, DC. Land grants supported colleges; later laws connected teaching, research and extension. Expansion also involved Indigenous dispossession and racial segregation.
Mendel and peas: making inheritance a quantitative question: 1856–1863: crosses; 1865: lectures; 1866: publication, Augustinian abbey in Brno, Moravia; present-day Czechia. From crossing garden peas to quantitative inheritance studies and the later development of scientific plant breeding.
Mycorrhiza: fungi in plant nutrition: 1885: Frank’s concept; earlier observations and later experiments, Berlin and the Prussian forestry network; later work in Europe and North America. Frank named mycorrhiza, while later researchers tested its mechanisms and significance for the nutrition of crop plants.
Root nodules and biological nitrogen fixation: 1886: announcement; 1888: Hellriegel and Wilfarth’s monograph, Bernburg and Berlin, Germany; later trials in Illinois, United States. Comparative experiments connected nitrogen gains in legumes with root nodules and living microorganisms, helping establish agricultural inoculation.
The ladybird that helped save California citrus: 1888–1889; subsequent research and development, California, especially the Los Angeles area; insects obtained from Australia. Introducing a natural enemy of cottony cushion scale became a famous crop-protection success whose mechanisms and limitations were studied for decades.
Soil Survey: putting soils on the map: 1899: initial field season; 1900: collected report, United States: Cecil County, the Connecticut and Salt Lake valleys, and Pecos. Federal investigation and state cooperation developed soil mapping, while successive researchers revised concepts of profiles, classification and map interpretation.
Hybrid Maize: From Experimental Plots to the Seed Industry: 1908–1940s; widespread adoption by 1960, United States: Cold Spring Harbor, Connecticut and the Corn Belt. Controlled crosses, field experiments and specialised seed production changed how American farmers obtained planting material and assessed new varieties.
Locust phase theory and observing agricultural threats: 1921: Uvarov’s theory; nineteenth-century observations to mechanistic research, The Caucasus, London, southern Africa and international research networks. Uvarov’s theory connected different locust forms and opened investigation of density, behaviour and habitat in the development of crop threats.
Seed banks: from Vavilov’s expeditions to safety duplicates in Svalbard: 1920s–1930s: Vavilov’s programme; 2008: Svalbard opens, Leningrad/St Petersburg and worldwide collections; Svalbard, Norway. Collecting, documenting and regenerating crop diversity, and creating secure copies of genebank collections.
Cerrado: Research, Soybeans and Landscape Change: Since the 1970s; Embrapa 1973, CPAC 1975, Brazil; Planaltina and different parts of the Cerrado biome. Soil science, plant breeding and bacteria combined with credit and infrastructure to reshape production, social relationships and Cerrado ecosystems.