Luigi Guarino

November 25, 2015November 25, 2015

Genebank questions in Parliament

So I spent yesterday afternoon in somewhat unusual surroundings, at least for me. I was in the House of Lords, of all places, helping to make the case for genebanks to a joint meeting of All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for Development together with All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology.

Sitting under the painting are the chairs, Ewen Cameron, Baron Cameron of Dillington and Jeremy Lefroy MP, who both seemed very receptive to the arguments. ¹ It was actually a very knowledgeable and engaged audience all round, with astute questions on how genebanks can help farmers directly, on whether breeders are ever satisfied with the service they’re getting, and on the role of the private sector in ensuring the conservation of crop diversity, among others. Let’s see to what extent the interest, of which there is plenty at the highest level in the UK, translates into financial support for the cause of genebanks.

November 23, 2015November 25, 2015

Brainfood: Heirloom lentil, American oil palm, Trees on farms, Cowpea selection, Apple health benefits, Traditional remedies, Bean landscapes, Maize and CC

Making Heritage: The Case of Black Beluga Agriculture on the Northern Great Plains. That would be Black Beluga lentils. Which seems a weird subject for feminist ethnography, generative criticism and reflexivity, but I’m game if you are.
Genetic and phenotypic diversity of natural American oil palm (Elaeis oleifera (H.B.K.) Cortés) accessions. Four geographical clusters, and a core collection.
Complementarity of native and introduced tree species: exploring timber supply on the east coast of Madagascar. Farmers on the edge of a protected area need a diverse mix of tree species to grow.
Farmer participation in selection within segregating populations of cowpea in Volta Region, Ghana. From 6 F3 populations with parents from Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and the USA to 24 lines which farmers liked.
Apple juices from ancient Italian cultivars: a study on mature endothelial cells model. Old apple cultivars are good for you. Or at least for human umbilical vascular endothelial cells.
Intellectual property rights, benefit-sharing and development of “improved traditional medicines”: A new approach. Ahem, what were those old apples again?
Landscape genetics, adaptive diversity and population structure in Phaseolus vulgaris. Domestication sites (still only 2) pinpointed in the landscape.
Changes in Climate, Crops, and Tradition: Cajete Maize and the Rainfed Farming Systems of Oaxaca, Mexico. Life is hard, and getting harder.

November 18, 2015November 30, 2015

Nibbles: Tomato rhythm, Pumpkin poop, Domestic olive, Papaya deforestation, Orphan crops, Perennial wheat, Apple grafting, Australian genebanks, CIMMYT seeds, French genebank, Ethnic markets, Rice breeding impact, Biodiversity & services

Domestication made the tomato run slower.
Domestication saved the pumpkin from climate change, which had messed up its cozy relationship with megafaunal poop.
Domestication may (or may not) have happened twice in the olive. No word on role of poop.
Papaya trashing the Amazon.
Orphan crops: their day is coming. But not yet?
You mean like kernza?
Grafting 101.
Tasmanian forage collection joins the club.
CIMMYT’s seed distribution operation in pix.
How the French cereals genebank maintains quality.
Medicinal plants in NYC.
Yes, donors, rice improvement makes a difference.
Biodiversity especially important when times are tough. Well, in microbial communities anyway.

November 18, 2015November 19, 2015

NBPGR’s genebank dashboard takes a bow

Good to hear ² that the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources in India has a new online “dashboard” summarizing data from its genebank, one of the largest in the world. ³

dashboard

There is a separate PGR Portal for searching the collection, though apparently only on basic characterization data so far. Except for wheat, that is, where you can search for a long list of phenotypic characters.

Clearly lots of work going on lately at NBPGR on getting their data out there. But when will we see them on Genesys?

November 17, 2015November 19, 2015

The trouble with Ipomoea

I think we may have mentioned in a recent Brainfood a “foundation monograph” of the genus Ipomoea in Bolivia, ⁴ without actually explaining what that is. Well, I’ll let one of the authors do that:

‘We wondered if we might be able to combine some of the speed of a Flora approach with some of the rigour of a Monograph,’ explains Dr Scotland. ‘And we’ve ended up with what we call “foundation monographs”.’ The new approach combines the time-limited approach and short descriptions of the Flora approach with the genetic analyses and fieldwork of Monographs, enabling species to be uncovered quickly, but accurately. Crucially, it borrows content like drawings and genetic analyses, where they exist, from existing studies, in order to avoid duplicating work.

Such work — whether floras or monographs — is largely based on existing herbarium specimens, of course, and a complementary study led by Zoë Goodwin, on which Dr Scotland is also a co-author, has just come out which sets out some of the problems associated with that.

…the team…scoured the records of Ipomoea — a large and diverse genus which includes the sweet potato — on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility database. Examining the names found on 49,500 specimens from the Americas, they found that 40% of these were outdated synonyms rather than the current name, and 16% of the names were unrecognisable or invalid. In addition, 11% of the specimens weren’t identified, being given only the name of the genus. ⁵

The work of the crop wild relatives mapper is never done.