Luigi Guarino

September 25, 2020September 25, 2020

The fun begins for the amazing Denise Costich

Another transition at an international genebank. Dr Denise Costich, head of the CIMMYT maize genebank, is retiring. Here’s what they call her “exit seminar.”

Denise and her team kept 32,000 accessions safe, and made them available to all. Denise is moving on, but that work continues.

Happy retirement, Denise!

September 24, 2020

Nibbles: Costich leaving seminar, Dibble video, AnGR plan, Building back better

Dr Denise Costich says goodbye to the CIMMYT maize genebank. Sad.
Dr Flint Dibble talks to himself about his Neolithic package.
Europe’s plan for conserving transboundary livestock breeds.
How are genebanks doing in the pandemic?

September 23, 2020

Nibbles: CWR, Data, Fires

Yep, it’s Crop Wild Relative Week again! Never gets old.
The work of a genebank is never done, NordGen documentation edition.
Why genebanks? Let these people in the US Northwest tell you why genebanks.

September 22, 2020

Nibbles: Lost apple, Ducks, Chilli breeding, Heritage breeds, Population and Quantitative Genetics, Madeira

Finding the Colorado Orange apple.
British duck breed goes wild in Thailand.
Might consumers care about genetics?
Well they do, right? At least if they’re into heirloom varieties and heritage breeds.
If they do care, they should read this book.
Is madeira your desert island wine?

September 21, 2020September 16, 2020

Brainfood: Bending the curve edition

Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy. Meaning: (i) sustainable agricultural intensification, (ii) trade, (iii) less food waste, (iv) more plant-based human diets, and (v) more and better protected areas.
The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land. See (iv) above.
Just ten percent of the global terrestrial protected area network is structurally connected via intact land. See (v) above.
Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife. See (i) above.
A cultivated planet in 2010 – Part 1: The global synergy cropland map. Gotta know where the cropland is before you can do (i) above.
Advances in plant phenomics: From data and algorithms to biological insights. Fancy maths can really help with (i) above.
Retrospective Quantitative Genetic Analysis and Genomic Prediction of Global Wheat Yields. Different fancy maths shows that CIMMYT’s Obregon wheat testing site can really help with (i) above.
Diversity analysis of 80,000 wheat accessions reveals consequences and opportunities of selection footprints. Here’s some stuff that wheat breeders can use to develop new materials to test at Obregon using phenomics, genomics and fancy maths.
First report on cryopreservation of mature shoot tips of two avocado (Persea americana Mill.) rootstocks. This should help with (iv) above. Eventually, work with me here.
Bread and porridge at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe: A new method to recognize products of cereal processing using quantitative functional analyses on grinding stones. Ahem. Well… No, sorry, I got nothing.