- A high proportion of beta-tocopherol in vitamin E is associated with poor seed longevity in rice produced under temperate conditions. The ratio of different antioxidants is an indicator of seed longevity.
- Review: High-throughput phenotyping to enhance the use of crop genetic resources. Phenomics is the new genomics.
- Genetic structure analysis and selection of a core collection for carob tree germplasm conservation and management. NE Spain is different to the rest.
- Population structure and genetic relationships between Ethiopian and Brazilian Coffea arabica genotypes revealed by SSR markers. Western Ethiopian diversity is largely untapped.
- Clustering analysis for wild ancient tea germplasm resources in Debao County and Longlin County, Guangxi based on SSR molecular markers. They’re quite different to tea from others parts of China.
- Modeling of crop wild relative species identifies areas globally for in situ conservation. 150 sites needed for 65% of 1200 CWR species in 167 genepools.
- Heat Tolerance in Diploid Wild Potato Species In Vitro. S. kurtzianum and S. sogarandinum were the most heat tolerant.
- The establishment of the species-delimits and varietal-identities of the cultivated germplasm of Luffa acutangula and Luffa aegyptiaca in Sri Lanka using morphometric, organoleptic and phylogenetic approaches. The less grown species tasted better.
- A Regional Comparison of Factors Affecting Global Sorghum Production: The Case of North America, Asia and Africa’s Sahel. New varieties needed, and seed exchange.
- The genetic structure of flax illustrates environmental and anthropogenic selections that gave rise to its eco-geographical adaptation. 4 major groups: Temperate, South Asian, Abyssinian and Mediterranean.
- Chemical evidence for the use of multiple psychotropic plants in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle from South America. Well that’s like your opinion, man.
- Hybridization speeds adaptive evolution in an eight-year field experiment. n=2, but still.
It would be really nice to see a common marker set for tea germplasm studies. There are an increasing number of small studies which cannot currently be easily connected. It is extremely difficult to obtain a holistic overview of the patterns of tea diversity in a way that could serve as useful basis for indentifying valuable sources of useful variation or priority targets for conservation..
CWR conservation
“Crop wild relatives (CWR), the wild and weedy plants closely related to cultivated crops, are a rich source of novel genetic diversity for crop breeding.” Elsewhere the paper mentions the need to develop “new crop varieties”.
Surely CWRs are the first place to look for developing new crops – not just new varieties of existing crops. There are half a dozen good candidates in Australia alone. The need for new crops – genetically and ecologically distinct from existing crops – is massive. Our success in selecting entirely new crops has been woeful.
And once we get the hang of just what characteristics early farmers chose for their new crops we could move away from CWRs to study what could be called NCRs (new crop relatives). This could be far more cost effective than the rather excessive (my opinion) focus on CWRs for breeding into existing crops.
I temper this criticism by admitting the value of wild wheat and oil palm relatives (and others) but point out the often vast existing ex situ collections that are underused (from my own experience Theobroma/Herrania, Coffea in CATIE, Phaseolus in CIAT). In situ conservation on many CWRs could be a waste of effort.