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The rapid reception of Gregor Mendel's paper ‘Experiments on plant hybrids’ (1866) in the early decades of the twentieth century remains poorly understood. We will suggest that this reception should not exclusively be investigated as the spread of a theory, but also as the spread of an experimental and computational protocol. Early geneticists used Mendel's paper, as well as reviews of Mendelian experiments in a variety of other publications, to acquire a unique combination of experimental and mathematical skills. We will analyse annotations in copies of Mendel's paper itself, in early editions and translations of this paper, and in early textbooks, such as Reginald Punnett's Mendelism (1905) or Wilhelm Johannsen's Elemente der exakten Erblichkeitslehre (1909). We will examine how readers used copies of such works to reproduce the logic behind Mendelian experiments, either by recalculating results, or by retracing the underlying combinatorial reasoning. We will place particular emphasis on the emergent role of diagrams in teaching and learning the practice of Mendelian genetics.

Agricultural experimentation is a world in constant evolution, spanning multiple scientific domains and affecting society at large. Even though the questions underpinning agricultural experiments remain largely the same, the instruments and practices for answering them have changed constantly during the twentieth century with the advent of new disciplines like molecular biology, genomics, statistics, and computing. Charting this evolving reality requires a mapping of the affinities and antinomies at work within the realm of agricultural research, and a consideration of the practices, tools and social and political structures in which agricultural experiments are grounded. Three main questions will be addressed to provide an overview of the complex world of agricultural research investigated by the special issue: What is an agricultural experiment? Who is an experimenter in agriculture? Where do agricultural experiments take place? It will become apparent that agricultural experiments have a wide relevance for human development as they touch upon concerns related to human health and nutrition, contribute to policy discussions, and can affect the social and political structures in which farming is embedded.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century statistics has reshaped the experimental cultures of agricultural research taking part in the subtle dialectic between the epistemic and the material that is proper to experimental systems. This transformation has become especially relevant in field trials and the paper will examine the British agricultural institution, Rothamsted Experimental Station, where statistical methods nowadays popular in the planning and analysis of field experiments were developed in the 1920s. At Rothamsted statistics promoted randomisation over systematic arrangements, factorisation over one-question trials, and emphasised the importance of the experimental error in assessing field trials. These changes in methodology transformed also the material culture of agricultural science, and a new body, the Field Plots Committee, was created to manage the field research of the agricultural institution. Although successful, the vision of field experimentation proposed by the Rothamsted statisticians was not unproblematic. Experimental scientists closely linked to the farming community questioned it in favour of a field research that could be more easily understood by farmers. The clash between the two agendas reveals how the role attributed to statistics in field experimentation defined different pursuits of agricultural research, alternately conceived of as a scientists' science or as a farmers' science.

All over the world, farming communities need to adapt to a changing climate. At the same time, they are confronted by the necessity to increase food availability for a growing population, but also to ensure a sustainable use of natural resources. In this process, agriculture is not just the fiend responsible for an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, nor the victim of rising temperatures and extreme weather events. Agriculture is also an ally in climate change mitigation and adaptation because the selection of ad hoc crop varieties and livestock can lower the environmental impact of farming and the implementation of better management practices can promote soil conservation. Whether agriculture will have a positive or a negative impact on climate change adaptation and mitigation will depend on the rural policies implemented, but it will also be contingent on an adequate understanding of the interconnections existing between weather, climate, and farming. This review explores such interconnections by focusing on the history of agricultural meteorology, which is the research field that studies the impact of weather and climate on crops, livestock, farming operations, and plant and animal pests and diseases. The article discusses stakeholders, institutions, and main developments in agricultural meteorology, and describes how the agenda of agricultural meteorology has shifted over time. At the beginning of the 20th century, research in agricultural meteorology focused on increasing the profitability of farming. In the 21st century, instead, the main goal of agricultural meteorology is to ensure food security and guarantee sustainability.