Month: July 2011

July 11, 2011July 11, 2011

Potato flesh colors

Potatoes' flesh colors / El color de las pulpas en papas by CIP - International Potato Center

Potatoes’ flesh colors / El color de las pulpas en papas, a photo by CIP – International Potato Center on Flickr.

Great shot from CIP.

July 11, 2011July 11, 2011

Brainfood: Tomato erosion, Cassava starch, Landscape diversity, American chestnut, Niche models, Dormancy genes, Herbarium collections, Indian livestock breeding, Banana breeding, Pollinators, Shattering gene, Participatory research

The risks of success in quality vegetable markets: Possible genetic erosion in Marmande tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.) and consumer dissatisfaction. Market takes the fun out of landraces.
Genetic variability of root peel thickness and its influence in extractable starch from cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) roots. Starch content depends on dry matter content and peel thickness. About 1500 accessions from CIAT evaluated for the latter, so lots to play around with.
A meta-analysis of crop pest and natural enemy response to landscape complexity. More landscape complexity means more natural enemies. Still no cure for cancer.
American Chestnut past and future: Implications of restoration for resource pulses and consumer populations of eastern U.S. forests. Reintroduction of blight-resistant chestnut may have some weird effects on other species.
Keep collecting: accurate species distribution modelling requires more collections than previously thought. Oh damn.
Variation in seed dormancy quantitative trait loci in Arabidopsis thaliana originating from one site. Is due to two QTLs. Also flowering time. But no, I don’t understand that “In contrast…” at the end of the abstract either.
Tracking origins of invasive herbivores through herbaria and archival DNA: the case of the horse-chestnut leaf miner. Another use for old herbarium specimens: finding evidence of pests.
Animal breeding in India – a time for reflection, and action. The reflection is that genetic improvement has stagnated, so the action needed includes better phenotypic record keeping, more attention to local diversity and community-breeding programmes.
Performance of micropropagation-induced off-type of East African highland banana (Musa AAA – East Africa). A promising avenue for improvement, the off-types yield more better bananas, a month later.
Pollination services in the UK: How important are honeybees? Not as important as you might think!
The same regulatory point mutation changed seed-dispersal structures in evolution and domestication. Cabbage-family fruit development and rice shattering share the same single point mutation.
Participatory research and on-farm management of agricultural biodiversity in Europe. By Michel “Pimpert”. That should be Pimbert. Old news, but worth mentioning.

July 11, 2011July 11, 2011

Nibbles: FAO, Spirituality, ASARECA, Land use, Conservation agriculture, REDD, Colombian beans, Immigrant cooking, Exploding watermelons, AnGR

Calestous Juma gives new FAO head some advice: find a role, build on what farmers do and know, engage civil society, help governments prioritize, and slash bureaucracy.
Religion and conservation: friends of enemies?
Eastern Africa Agricultural Productivity Project seems to be mainly about setting up regional centres of excellence in dairy, cassava, rice and wheat. Maybe ASARECA should ask for some advice from Prof. Juma?
Land use map of the UK. Let the mash-upping begin.
Training in sustainable conservation agriculture in India and Mexico. But how really sustainable is the whole thing if based on modern varieties? Oh, and Brazil too.
Saving the Amazon for $33 a month.Or maybe just a buck?
Local cooking a long way from home, Part I; from Colombia to Washington DC.
Local cooking a long way from home, Part II; from everywhere to New York’s Lower East Side.
Don’t worry, exploding watermelons are perfectly safe, and legal.
FAO updates its webpage on “Implementing the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources” and documents the fact by providing a time stamp. Jeremy chuffed.

July 11, 2011July 11, 2011

Diverse seeds for disaster relief

SciDev.net reports on a new study reinforcing the view that after a disaster that wipes out seed stocks the local, informal seed system “in the form of loans or gifts of seed from friends and relatives” is more likely to restore agrobiodiversity to the farming systems than seed relief and markets. The study looked specifically at cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) after disastrous floods in Gaza Province, Mozambique, and strengthens the more general conclusion that seeds already in the local system offer the best chance of restoration.

I can’t help wondering, however, whether disasters of this kind might not also offer an opportunity to inject extra diversity into farming systems. Not just any old diversity, as might be provided by seed relief or generous private sector suppliers, but diversity selected to perform well under predicted climatic conditions in the disaster area. A savvy genebank system, working with relief agencies, might be able to supply small amounts of pre-selected diversity that farmers would be willing to try under the circumstances. And some of that diversity might even be better than what they had before the disaster.

Just a thought.

July 10, 2011July 9, 2011

Amazonian ethnobotany from the beginning

The main rubber tree, which the British took to Malaysia, was the basis of all plantations. There are nine other plants in that same group from which the Indians once got rubber. But the plantations had started to supply the world with better and cheaper rubber than the Indians had been producing under terrible — almost slave — conditions. So the Indians had three or four generations when they hadn’t tapped wild rubber, and we were sent into the various countries to try to stimulate this for the war effort. I had been in the Amazon of Colombia, so I went right back among my Indians, and I worked on that during the war.

That’s the Father of Modern Ethnobotany, Richard Schultes, in part of a long interview he gave in 1990 for something called the Academy of Achievement. You can read it, listen to it, or watch videos of it. Fascinating.