- An app to help farmers choose agroforestry species in India.
- An app to keep cows on the straight and narrow in Epping Forest.
- The herbalists of Tunis could maybe do with an app.
- There’s no app to stop agrobiodiversity loss. Even in India.
Brainfood: Neodomestication, Millet diets, OFSP, Fruits, Okra core, Floating gardens, Quinoa evaluation, Bean cooking, Neolithic, Lychee genome, Climate change, European maize double
- Scaling up neodomestication for climate-ready crops. Ok, but when is enough enough?
- Can Feeding a Millet-Based Diet Improve the Growth of Children? — A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Yes. So maybe make the most of the crops we already have?
- Does vitamin A rich orange-fleshed sweetpotato adoption improve household level diet diversity? Evidence from Ghana and Nigeria. Sometimes. So maybe make the most of the crops we already have?
- Global interdependence for fruit genetic resources: status and challenges in India. So many crops out there.
- DATASET: The World Vegetable Center okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) core collection as a source for flooding stress tolerance traits for breeding. This is one way of making the most of the crops we already have.
- The floating garden agricultural system of the Inle lake (Myanmar) as an example of equilibrium between food production and biodiversity maintenance. This is another way of making the most of the crops we already have.
- Phenotyping a diversity panel of quinoa using UAV-retrieved leaf area index, SPAD-based chlorophyll and a random forest approach. Oh look, here’s another, and all you need is a drone and fancy maths.
- The Phaseolus vulgaris L. Yellow Bean Collection: genetic diversity and characterization for cooking time. For this one you don’t even need a drone.
- Prehistoric Farming Settlements in Western Anatolia. What, only 5 crops?
- Two divergent haplotypes from a highly heterozygous lychee genome suggest independent domestication events for early and late-maturing cultivars. Ancient farmers knew what they were doing after all, eh?
- Expected global suitability of coffee, cashew and avocado due to climate change. Millennials could be in trouble if new crops don’t come along.
- Traditional Foods From Maize (Zea mays L.) in Europe. Maybe European millennials could eat more maize.
- Growing maize landraces in industrialized countries: from the search for seeds to the emergence of new practices and values. Nah, let’s domesticate something else instead.
The real dope on dope
If you were not satisfied with my glib summary of the paper “Large-scale whole-genome resequencing unravels the domestication history of Cannabis sativa” last August, the indefatigable Dorian Fuller has you covered.
Bottom line: incomplete sampling and imprecise dating mean that multiple domestications of the crop in China at the same time as, or even after, those of millets should not be ruled out just yet.
Shake up of PGRFA in Russia?
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources.
Wait, isn’t there one already?
The President decided to establish such a center on the basis of the Federal Research Center “All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources named after N. I. Vavilov.”
Wait, what does “on the basis” mean?
In order to ensure coordination of the activities of the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources, I decide:
1. Establish an Interdepartmental Commission on the Formation, Preservation and Use of Collections of Plant Genetic Resources…
Ah, ok.
The Interdepartmental Commission on the Formation, Preservation and Use of Collections of Plant Genetic Resources (hereinafter referred to as the Commission) was established to ensure coordination of the activities of the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources (hereinafter referred to as the National Center).
So what is this National Centre though?
The Chairman of the Commission is the director of the federal state budgetary scientific institution “Federal Research Center All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources named after N.I. Vavilov”.
Fair enough.
Stay tuned. Thanks to Isby for digging all this up.
Nibbles: Food flows, Olive collection, Sweet potato breeding, Global Bean Project, Open Source Plant Breeding, Saladino book
- You can explore food flows among US counties. If you have lots of time.
- Studying a huge olive collection. To fight climate change.
- Improving sweet potatoes in Cambodia. Somehow.
- There’s a meeting of the Global Bean Project. Tomorrow.
- Speaking of sweet potatoes and crowd-sourced breeding (well, sort of). The Open Source Plant Breeding Forum.
- Apparently there’s nobody talking about the food extinction crisis. Nobody.