- Exploring the genetic and adaptive diversity of a pan-Mediterranean crop wild relative: narrow-leafed lupin. W-E migration.
- From lesser-known to super vegetables: the growing profile of African traditional leafy vegetables in promoting food security and wellness. I’m sold.
- Home-grown school feeding: promoting local production systems diversification through nutrition sensitive agriculture. Any traditional leafy greens, though?
- Citrus genebank collections: international collaboration opportunities between the US and Russia. Very complementary.
- Adapting clonally propagated crops to climatic changes: a global approach for taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott). The need for seed.
- High-temperature drying of seeds of wild Oryza species intended for long-term storage. The need for drying seeds at 45°C.
- Productivity, biodiversity, and pathogens influence the global hunter-gatherer population density. Come the zombie apocalypse, head for subtropical and temperate forest biomes.
- Genomics of the origin and evolution of Citrus. It all started when the SE foothills of the Himalayas got a bit dryer in the Miocene… But there’s only one genus (well, plus Poncirus), with 10 species. Oh and pummelos are really important.
- Sheep herding systems and animal genetic resource management in the Central Plateau region of Burkina Faso. The best strategy overall would be for rural breeders to specialize in maintaining purebreds and urban breeders, closer to markets, fattened F1 crossbreds. But that’s easier said than done.
- Access to genes: linkages between genebanks and farmers’ seed systems. You can do it in half a dozen different ways, but there are challenges with scale, sustainability and legal frameworks.
While I can only speak to taro in Hawaii, one of the challenges of interpreting taro disease resistance studies in indigenous taro cultivars vs the new hybrids is that, with few exceptions, the agriculture research stations are at similar elevations and have impoverished soils. Epigenetics, microclimates, soil type and health, and water temperature play a significant role in the resilience of traditional taro varieties in Hawaii. Almost seventy years of chemical fertilizers, little attention to rebuilding organic matter and native beneficials in taro soils, and major declines in water flows for wetland taro production in Hawaii make for skewed outcomes in favor of disease. Where Hawaii’s research stations and taro farmers practice good soil husbandry, timely harvests and plant stock culling practices, traditional taro varieties thrive. An old Hawaiian saying – nana i ke kumu; look to the source.