Luigi Guarino

March 25, 2020

From Collection to Cultivation

Applications are invited for two Research Associate positions, each with a fixed-term of 36 months, working on a Wellcome Trust-funded project on the recent histories of food, agriculture, and crop science to start on 1 September 2020 (or as soon as possible thereafter). The successful candidates will be based in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) at the University of Cambridge and will be collaborators in the research project “From Collection to Cultivation: Historical Perspectives on Crop Diversity and Food Security” led by Dr Helen Anne Curry.

If only I were younger…

March 23, 2020March 19, 2020

Brainfood: Rotations, Sunflower conservation, Wild lentils, Iranian sheep, Crispy rice, Macrotyloma preferences, Cenchrus diversity, Livestock systems, Morning glories, Freezing nuts, SOTW-AB, ABS

Long-Term Evidence Shows that Crop-Rotation Diversification Increases Agricultural Resilience to Adverse Growing Conditions in North America. Meaning higher maize yields in droughts.
Gene banks for wild and cultivated sunflower genetic resources. Details from the US, France and Serbia, summary info from Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany, India, Romania, Russia, Spain. Reference genomes and high throughput phenotyping for the wild relatives on the horizon.
Evaluation and identification of wild lentil accessions for enhancing genetic gains of cultivated varieties. About 10% of 96 wild lentil accessions conserved in India are good for something.
Genetic structure of Iranian indigenous sheep breeds: insights for conservation. 8 breeds should be the focus of conservation efforts, as the trend is towards homogenization.
CRISPR-mediated accelerated domestication of African rice landraces. Started with well-known African sativa landrace Kabre and messed with total of 4 loci for plant height, seed size and yield, resulting in mutants with better grain yield.
Farmers’ Preferences for Genetic Resources of Kersting’s Groundnut [Macrotyloma geocarpum (Harms) Maréchal and Baudet] in the Production Systems of Burkina Faso and Ghana. They depend on the ethnic group.
Genotyping-By-Sequencing Reveals Population Structure and Genetic Diversity of a Buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris L.) Collection. Structure in the ILRI collection is not straightforwardly geographical. My guess is that rainfall is involved. Oh, and we have a core collection now.
Improved feeding and forages at a crossroads: Farming systems approaches for sustainable livestock development in East Africa. We need the above, and more, at scale.
A foundation monograph of Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae) in the New World. 425 spp, many of them, in different clades, with storage roots, and little known.
Morpho-Physiological and Genomic Evaluation of Juglans Species Reveals Regional Maladaptation to Cold Stress. Gonna need a bigger collection.
Declining biodiversity for food and agriculture needs urgent global action. The The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture summarized: it’s essential, it’s declining, we’re not doing enough.
Rethink the expansion of access and benefit sharing. Just maybe this is a/the reason?

March 19, 2020

Nibbles: Darshan Brar, Pest & diseases, Niebé, Indian mango, Botany school

Pioneering IRRI rice breeder passes away.
Climate change makes pests and diseases worse. Why we need the above.
Cowpea gets a boost. Again why we need breeders.
Everything about mango in India. Literally everything, I’m not kidding.
Materials for teaching botany. Alas, not much on breeding and agriculture. At least for now.

March 17, 2020March 16, 2020

Nibbles: Home brewing, Pathology, Sharing vs sparing, Chilling, Cognac, Flower breeding, Algerian sheep, COVID-19, Data

Going hyper-local with your brewing yeast.
Protecting sweet potato the Colombian way.
Land sharing is good for you. The paper is in a Brainfood, see if you can find it…
Fooling trees into chilling. Until the breeders do their stuff anyway.
Maybe they’re all working on Ugni blanc.
A rose is a rose is a mutant.
Sheep combat. You heard me.
COVID-19 and food security: no need for panic yet.
But if you’re stuck at home, these online museum tours might come in useful. And remember you can do the same with genebanks.

March 16, 2020

Questioning the questioners

Farmer input is essential to tackling global challenges of climate change, rural poverty and nutrition. A new data collection tool aims to build the biggest open-access dataset of its kind for development and research.

That sounds great. Nice to see, in particular, clusters of survey questions on dietary diversity and wild foods.

But where are the questions on intraspecific crop diversity? Surely it’s interesting to ask farmers how many different landraces/varieties of each crop they grow? Am I missing something among the over 700 questions?

Ok, there’s an additional module on adoption of modern varieties. But is that really enough? Looking forward to hearing from my friends at the Alliance.