This enriching cookbook celebrates eight important plants Native Americans introduced to the rest of the world: corn, beans, squash, chile, tomato, potato, vanilla, and cacao—with more than 100 recipes. When these eight Native American plants crossed the ocean after 1492, the world’s cuisines were changed forever. In Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky, James Beard Award-winning author and chef Lois Ellen Frank introduces the splendor and importance of this Native culinary history and pairs it with delicious, modern, plant-based recipes using Native American ingredients. Along with Native American culinary advisor Walter Whitewater, Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky shares more than 100 nutritious, plant‑based recipes organized by each of the foundational ingredients in Native American cuisine as well as a necessary discussion of food sovereignty and sustainability. A delicious, enlightening celebration of Indigenous foods and Southwestern flavors, Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky shares recipes for dishes such as Blue Corn Hotcakes with Prickly Pear Syrup, Three Sisters Stew, and Green Chile Enchilada Lasagna, as well as essential basics like Corn Masa, Red and Green Chile Sauces, and Cacao Spice Rub. The “Magic 8” ingredients share the page—and plate—to create recipes that will transform your world.

"The agricultural sky" is a dominant natural entity that has influenced, interacted with, and guided the evolution of crops, farming practices, and cropping systems. The sky—and all its components—above and near agricultural areas is an important aspect of an agricultural enterprise—as important as soils, water, and crop species. The blue sky above crops that is seemingly clear, tranquil or sometimes filled with clouds, is really a repository of a large number of gases, mineral or organic particulate matter, dust, mist, turbulent wind, innumerable species of micro-organisms, tiny biotic flora/fauna, seeds, insects, etc. The agrarian sky supports complex interactions of biotic and abiotic aspects with perhaps immediate and/or delayed influence on crops sown on the ground. This volume helps us to better understand the importance of the sky above crop fields, with the goal to encourage revolutionary agronomic procedures that lead to higher yield. It is a comprehensive treatise on the agriculture sky, covering basic definitions, limits, and explanations about atmospheric layers like troposphere, stratosphere, and the phyllosphere. The volume addresses the nutrient dynamics in the sky and their relevance to crop productivity. It looks at both natural biotic and manmade abiotic factors in the sky and how they affect what goes on below, such as from dust storms, at cloudy and/or windy locations, and from high-altitude jet streams. The author discusses wind and solar power generation in the agrarian sky and explores aeroponics to revolutionize crop production. The volume delves into several types of aerial robots, employing AI and other technology, to provide aerial spectral data that are capable of analyzing procedures, soil conditions, irrigation, insect pests, weed detection, herbicide application, soil fertility, and much more. The book includes examples from the North American Great Plains, Pampas of Argentina, Sahelian production zones of West Africa, Indo-Gangetic Plains, etc. This eye-opening book, The Agricultural Sky: A Concept to Revolutionize Farming, will be useful to students and professors in universities as well as to researchers in industry dealing with aerial aspects of farming.

1918: Lord Howe Island, off Australias eastern coast. An American, Paul De Martinet, arrives to paint the sub tropical outposts vanishing birds. Home to an insular community, jealousy and suspicion lurk not far below the surface of what appears to be an otherwise carefree community. On expeditions into the islands mysterious and beautiful kentia palm forest he is accompanied by Margaret Sleap, a gifted local gardener. Re-animating vanished birds in paint, they find each specimen resonates with its own deeper story of loss and belonging. Together they map out the aching territory of love until one day, as tensions surface, they are the victims of a savage attack that sets in motion their own choices of survival.