Author: Luigi Guarino

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Another crop wild relative to the rescue

I’ve just run across a new paper which, apart from being interesting, also gives me the opportunity to apologize for nibbling earlier today an item on Fusarium head blight (FHB) that Jeremy had already discussed at some length about a month ago! The original item had to do with the sequencing of the genome of the fungus which causes FHB, a serious disease of wheat and barley. Two strains were in fact compared, and Jeremy blogged about the differences that were found in the two sequences. He ended his ruminations thus:

You may remember that a joint team of Israeli and US researchers recently reported that a wild relative of wheat, Sharon Goatgrass (Aegilops sharonensis), is loaded with resistance genes that protect it against seven of the most important fungal diseases of wheat. Alas, none of the samples tested was resistant to Fusarium head blight. How about some other wild relative species, though? We shall see.

Well, the Molecular Breeding paper I’ve just been alerted to should make him happy. In it, Xiaorong Shen and Herbert Ohm at Purdue report that they found resistance to FHB in bread wheat lines into which had been introgressed bits of a chromosome of a wild relative, Tall Wheatgrass, or Thinopyrum ponticum. The bits of chromosomes were from different sources, and their introgression into wheat caused different reactions to FHB infection, showing that there’s variation in resistance to the pathogen as well as within the pathogen itself.

GRIN has records for two accessions under this name, both from the Vavilov Institute in Russia, but suggests that name is actually a synonym for Elytrigia pontica, for which there are a total of 18 accessions in the USDA system (another synonym is Triticum ponticum). SINGER has records for two accessions of Elytrigia, but none for the species in question, under none of these synonyms. EURISCO has only one record. Looks as though some more collecting may be in order. The distribution of the species seems to be central and southern Europe, the Caucasus and western Asia.

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Healthier farmers, better products

That’s the theme and title of the latest issue of LEISA Magazine, which explores “how human health is being improved through good natural resource management and maintenance of ecosystem health.” There are articles on neglected crops, traditional medicinal plants and organic agriculture, among other things — lots of agrobiodiversity related stuff. Thanks again to Danny for the headsup. Great reading.

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ABS deconstructed

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has an on-line decision-making tool to help you work your way through Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) arrangements ((Thanks to Danny for the find.)):

Under the Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic Resources and Fair and Equitable Sharing of the Benefits Arising out of their Utilization, of the Convention on Biological Diversity, companies commit to sharing benefits of the use of genetic resources with host countries. Through its SECO funded Access and Benefit Sharing project, IISD has led the development of the “Access and Benefit Sharing Management Tool”– a voluntary tool for implementing the Bonn Guidelines.

It seems quite thorough. For example, it includes discussion of how the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) fits into the larger ABS picture.

Kathryn over at Blogging Biodiversity suggests that treating biodiversity like a string of sausages — one set of rules for agrobiodiversity, another for medicinal plants, a third for microbes perhaps, etc. — may not be such a good idea. She recognizes that there are very good reasons why agricultural biodiversity should be treated in a different way to medicinal plants, for example, but is worried about this being the beginning of a nasty slippery slope. But the ITPGRFA is international law, whatever its faults, and the wider biodiversity ABS community is slowly learning to live with it.