Breeding

Agricultural biodiversity conference and survey

A couple of quick announcements today that I don’t want to get lost in Nibbles.

First, there’s an International Conference on Agrobiodiversity going on in Nepal. I just found out about it, but it’s hybrid, so you can still join.

Second, if you’re an expert on potatoes or sweet potatoes, consider taking this survey from CIP.

More on the US push for opportunity crops.
Oh look there’s a whole compendium on African opportunity crops from FAO.
Many of them are roots and tubers.
For the Hopi, maize is an opportunity crop.
For the Adivasis, it’s rice.
And more along the same lines from Odisha.
Llamas were an opportunity for lots of people down the ages.
…and still are, for some.
Portugal eschews llamas for an ancient cattle breed.
I bet Mexico’s genebank offers some amazing opportunities.
And New Zealand’s too.
Let’s not forget bats. Yes, bats.
Jeremy’s latest newsletter tackles turmeric, pepper and sweet potatoes, among other things.
And the best way to frame all of the above is that the World Economic Forum wants governments to ban people from growing their own food because that causes climate change.

Frugivory by carnivores: Black-backed jackals are key dispersers of seeds of the scented !nara melon in the Namib Desert. Jackals pee on wild melon relatives and disperse their seeds, not necessarily in that order.
Out of the Shadows: Reestablishing the Eastern Fertile Crescent as a Center of Agricultural Origins: Part 1. Go East, young archaeobotanists!
Extinction risk predictions for the world’s flowering plants to support their conservation. Fancy maths says 45% of angiosperms are potentially threatened. Same for crop wild relatives in the Eastern Fertile Crescent? Black-backed jackals unavailable for comment.
Global Wild Rice Germplasm Resources Conservation Alliance: WORLD WILD-RICE WIRING. Scientists get together to conserve global wild rice germplasm resources, understand the ecology of wild rice environments, identify and address threats, define effective ways to use wild species in rice improvement, and provide data for decision-making. Not a minute too soon, given the above.
Morphometric analysis of wild potato leaves. Who needs genotyping anyway.
Large-scale gene expression alterations introduced by structural variation drive morphotype diversification in Brassica oleracea. Brassica scientists need genotyping, apparently, that’s who.
Exploring the nutritional potentials of wild Vigna legume species for neo-domestication prospects. Not much potential if they go extinct though. Quick, photograph their leaves!

Vulnerability of U.S. new and industrial crop genetic resources. More germplasm (especially wild relatives) and breeders are needed in the US of castor bean, gumweed, guar, guayule, kenaf, roselle, safflower, sesame, sunn hemp, rubber dandelion and Vernonia.
Safeguarding Plant Genetic Resources in the U.S. But the conservation system itself has its challenges, due to climate change.
Operationalizing cultural adaptation to climate change: contemporary examples from United States agriculture. But climate change is not the only thing that agriculture (and possibly the conservation system too) needs to adapt to.
Efforts to cryopreserve shrimp (Penaeid) genetic resources and the potential for a shrimp germplasm bank in the United States. Sure, why not, let them eat shrimp.
Mother Tubers of Wild Potato Solanum jamesii can Make Shoots Five Times. Are enough populations of this thing in genebanks, I wonder? No, not compared to shrimps.
‘Hybrid’ US sheep breeder used endangered genetic material, faces jail. Yes, I know this is not peer-reviewed, but would you have left it out of this American round-up?

The trouble with millets. Because there’s always room for a Star Trek allusion.
Growing heritage rice varieties in Goa. With hardly any trouble, it seems.
Really, really old bread. And more from Jeremy.
Breeding company and CIP collaborating to save potato diversity in the Andes.
Another genebank opens in the Gulf.
The story of Niger’s Violet De Galmi onion. Or is it Niger’s?
The latest crop to be called humble is the lentil.
New varieties may help save risotto, but better water management will probably have to feature too, I suspect. Otherwise lentils could stand in I suppose.
In the end, though, maybe we should all just cultivate sea cucumbers.