Luigi Guarino

September 5, 2009September 5, 2009

Reporting threats to agrobiodiversity: A modest proposal

Yesterday Hannes, à propos of something else, reminded me of a post I did a few months back about ProMED which asked the question “Why do we still not have an early warning system for genetic erosion?” Today I read about pestMapper — “[an] internet-based software tool for reporting and mapping biological invasions and other geographical and temporal events.” Whose objectives is basically to make a more participatory, Web 2.0-like ProMED. Coincidence? Maybe. Anyway, this is exactly the kind of thing we’ve been thinking here a “global genetic erosion threat reporting and monitoring portal” might look like. Any thoughts? An idea worth pursuing?

pest map

September 5, 2009

War of the roses

The oldest written testimony of the use of roses by humans originates from Mesopotamia. In the royal graves of Uruk, the cultural centre of the Sumerians (now ruins called Warka, in southern Iraq), Sir Leonard Wolley found cuneiform-script texts reporting on warfare by Sargon of Akkad (24th century BC) whose empire reached from western Persia to Asia Minor. Akkad crossed the Taurus mountains and brought back grapevines, figs, and roses…

September 5, 2009September 5, 2009

Nibbles: Chicory symbolism, Watermelon disease, Olive documentation, Camassia quamash, Pig maps

Chicory averts evil. Gotta get me some.
Genebank watermelon material reveals sources of resistance to WVD caused by SqVYV. What?
Israelis, Palestinians and Germans collaborate on DNA fingerprinting and quality evaluation of olive trees. Wait, what? Scroll down.
Genetic structure of Native American food plant not really affected by Native Americans. This is the bulb that kept Lewis & Clark alive, apparently.
Tracing Paper compares hog distribution in 1922 and now, finds little difference.

September 4, 2009September 4, 2009

Chinese interdependence

A paper just out in Agricultural Science in China reminded me that I wanted to say something about one of the great meta-narratives of plant genetic resources: interdependence — the old no-country-is-self-sufficient-in-PGR mantra. Which, unlike some other meta-narratives, is generally recognized as being true — witness the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). And that despite the fact that measuring interdependence is not by any means easy, and has not often been done.

The paper which caught my eye is not really primarily about interdependence. ¹ It just shows that cultivars of winter oilseed rape (canola) from China are very distinct from European ones, on the basis of molecular markers. Which presumably means that yield gains could be had from cross-breeding between the two groups. Which does say something about interdependence, but not very forcefully.

However, that paper reminded me about two others that a colleague had recently sent me, along with the thought that they should be enough, in a perfect world, for China to ratify the ITPGRFA.

The first is about soybean. ² It shows, using molecular markers again, that a couple of elite Chinese cultivars benefited greatly, in terms of both specific traits but also their difference from previous Chinese cultivars (that is, the genetic base of the crop as a whole was broadened) from the fact that US and Japanese germplasm was involved in their development, rather than just Chinese stuff.

The second paper makes the interdependence point even more strongly by quantifying the contribution of foreign maize germplasm to production in China, rather than just genetic diversity. ³ It turns out that a 1% contribution by US material (based on the coefficient of parentage) translates to an additional 0.01 t/ha (0.2%), and a 1% contribution by CIMMYT germplasm to an additional 0.025 t/ha.

The conclusion: “The extensive utilization of US and CG germplasm improved maize yield potential in China… The government should provide funds to support research on germplasm introduction…” And, we could add, it should ratify the ITPGRFA. No country is self-sufficient in PGRFA. Not even the largest.

September 2, 2009September 1, 2009

Talking about prairie restoration

“Not long ago, it was assumed that once a prairie was plowed up for row crop agriculture, there was no way to get the plant and animal species back again,” said Chris Helzer of The Nature Conservancy. “But now we’ve got the technology and experience to successfully harvest and plant seeds from hundreds of plant species. So in cases where it makes sense to do that kind of restoration, we can re-establish that diverse plant community.”

And that, as we’ve seen, includes a whole bunch of crop wild relatives. Wonder if the folks talking about this in Aurora, NE will give them their due. In fact, I wonder if restoration ecologists in general give any sort of special consideration to CWRs in their work. If you know, tell us.