Luigi Guarino – Page 279 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

October 10, 2017December 1, 2020

Giving wheat breeders something to really cheer about

Nice to see a story about germplasm evaluation by a genebank make it into the mainstream media in India.

In what is claimed to be the first global mega study, Indian agricultural scientists screened about 20,000 accessions of wheat germplasm conserved in the country’s gene bank to identify genes that can confer resistance against all types of fungal diseases affecting cereal grain grown worldwide.

But why now? The paper to which the story refers came out in December last year, and we included it in a Brainfoond in January. And, more importantly, why are the data not available on NBPGR’s Data Portal?

October 10, 2017

Is data a bottleneck to PPP in conservation too?

Lawrence Haddad of GAIN has a blog post out on the “the data gaps that inhibit productive engagement between the public and the private spheres to advance nutrition.” It’s nicely summarized in a tweet.

What data gaps are holding back the public and the private from working together? See below. https://t.co/Z5IpFvlS8I pic.twitter.com/lmHhk9tCNl

— Lawrence Haddad (@l_haddad) October 10, 2017

Strikes me that many of the same things could be said about public-private partnerships in conservation of agricultural biodiversity too. Only more so.

October 10, 2017

Nibbles: Digital lettuce, Dutch seeds, Durian genome, Jackfruit 101, Ag origins, Palestinian watermelon, Pumpkin evolution, Wine trade

Dutch lettuce collection to be sequenced.
Ah yes, the Dutch are real seed visionaries.
Durian next?
Maybe jackfruit?
We should never have given up being hunter-gatherers.
But then we wouldn’t have watermelons. Or, later in the year, pumpkins.
Or wine.

October 9, 2017October 10, 2017

Reports galore for the CFS

It’s the time of year for major reports, I guess. Here’s what’s on the table:

HLPE. 2017. Nutrition and food systems. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, Rome.
FAO. 2017. The State of Food and Agriculture 2017 — Leveraging food systems for inclusive rural transformation. FAO, Rome.
IPES-Food. 2017. Unravelling the Food–Health Nexus: Addressing practices, political economy, and power relations to build healthier food systems. The Global Alliance for the Future of Food and IPES-Food.

You can follow the discussion on all these and more on the webcast of the 44th session of the Committee on World Food Security.

Maybe we should just have stayed hunters and gatherers?

October 9, 2017October 2, 2017

Brainfood: Antioxidant adzuki, Sorghum gaps, Natural rubber diversity, Non-flying geese

Phytochemical distribution and antioxidant activities of Korean adzuki bean (Vigna angularis) landraces. A cluster of about 10% of 200 Korean landraces have higher antioxidant activity, and smaller seeds. Watch them take over the world.
Sorghum germplasm from West and Central Africa maintained in the ICRISAT genebank: Status, gaps, and diversity. Lots of gaps, but Nigeria isn’t one of them.
A century of guayule: Comprehensive genetic characterization of the US national guayule (Parthenium argentatum A. Gray) germplasm collection. The future of natural rubber is in Texas.
Contribution of both positive selection and relaxation of selective constraints to degeneration of flyability during geese domestication. Wild geese chased no longer due to strong selection on mitochondrial respiratory chain genes.