Luigi Guarino

October 20, 2022October 21, 2022

The happiness of visiting genebanks

Sorry for the relative silence lately. Work intervened, involving a longish trip to Bhutan, to check out their national genebank. The specific project in question is the one we call BOLD. Check my insta for the inevitable, and inevitably classy, pix.

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October 5, 2022October 6, 2022

Nibbles: New cassava, Community seedbank double, Rwandan beans, Knotweed et al., Seed systems, Adam Alexander, Uruguay genebank, Kelp biobank

There’s a new cassava in town in Kenya.
I wonder if it will end up in a community “seed” bank.
…because they swear by them in Zimbabwe.
Cassava is not the only American crops that’s important in parts of Africa: the cultural appropriation of beans in Rwanda.
Some American crops didn’t make it very far out of America.
Be it beans, cassava or sump/knotweed, what’s needed is a Quality-Declared Seed (QDS) system. Right?
Well you also need someone to go around collecting the stuff in the first place.
But don’t forget to back everything up in Svalbard, like Uruguay is doing.
Well maybe not everything.

October 3, 2022September 28, 2022

Brainfood: Diversity & stability, Diversity & profitability, Rotations, Food environments, Food system transitions, Deforestation & ag, Great Lakes priorities, Translational research, Field size, Genetic erosion

Consistent stabilizing effects of plant diversity across spatial scales and climatic gradients. More species-diverse communities are more stable. Ok, what about agricultural systems though?
Financial profitability of diversified farming systems: A global meta-analysis. Total costs, gross income and profits were higher in diversified systems, and benefit-cost ratio similar to simplified systems. No word on stability, alas.
Global systematic review with meta-analysis reveals yield advantage of legume-based rotations and its drivers. Integrating a legume into your low-diversity/low-input cereal system can boost main crop yields by 20%. I wonder if this meta-analysis was included in the above meta-analysis. Again, no word on stability though.
The influence of food environments on dietary behaviour and nutrition in Southeast Asia: A systematic scoping review. It’s the affordability, stupid. Should have gone for more diversified farming I guess :)
Global food systems transitions have enabled affordable diets but had less favourable outcomes for nutrition, environmental health, inclusion and equity. Well according to this, industrialised farming (ie simplification) has led to more affordable diets. But we know from the above that diversification can be profitable. So it was the wrong kind of simplification? Can we diversify now and maintain affordability while also improving nutrition, environmental health, inclusion and equity? Wouldn’t that be something.
Disentangling the numbers behind agriculture-driven tropical deforestation. Ending deforestation is not enough. The resulting agriculture must be diversified in the right way too, I guess.
Strategizing research and development investments in climate change adaptation for root, tuber and banana crops in the African Great Lakes Region: A spatial prioritisation and targeting framework. Diversifying with drought-tolerant bananas and heat-tolerant potatoes is all well and good, but you also have to know where exactly to diversify, and here’s how.
Translational research in agriculture. Can we do it better? Difficulty developing drought-tolerant bananas and heat-tolerant potatoes? Get more diverse peer-reviewers.
Increasing crop field size does not consistently exacerbate insect pest problems. When you diversify, don’t worry too much about making fields bigger.
Genetic diversity loss in the Anthropocene. You can predict change in genetic diversity from change in range size, and the average is about a 10% loss already. Ok, what about agricultural systems though? Wait, isn’t this where we came in? My brain hurts…

September 28, 2022September 28, 2022

Nibbles: Ghana genebank, Indian crop breeding, Bhutan genebank, Grafting, Vielfalt auf Feldern und Tellern

Genebank pushes Bambara groundnut in Ghana.
Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University develops new varieties, deposits them in Indian genebank.
Bhutan’s national genebank explains its work.
Grafting fruit trees in India to save them.
All of the above contribute to SDG 2.5.
All of the above are needed to get out of the food and climate crises. How? Crop Trust executive directors explains for German speakers.

September 28, 2022

Happy birthday to Aussie genebank guidelines

The Australian Network for Plant Conservation is celebrating the first birthday of the third edition of “Strategies and guidelines for developing, managing and utilising ex situ collections” with a nice bunch of resources. And a quick survey. Check it out.