Author: Luigi Guarino

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Variegation is mimicry?

The suggestion has just been published that leaf variegation may have evolved as a defence mechanism against being eaten. Variegated leaves look like they’ve already been attacked, so they’re avoided by pests. Working on an Ecuadorian rainforest floor aroid, researchers found that

While moths infested almost 8% of green leaves, they infested 1.6% of variegated ones and just 0.4% of those painted to look like they were variegated.

Damn, another paper to read. This one is in Evolutionary Biology.

There are lots of variegated taros. Would it help to scatter a few around a field, I wonder? Or even to invest in some correction fluid…

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Rescuing Pawnee corn

There’s an extremely intriguing article in Sunday’s North Platte Telegraph. North Platte is in Nebraska, and the story is bylined Kearney, which is in the same state. Nebraska is home to the Pawnee people, 1 and the article is basically an account of a tribal function held last Friday “to welcome Pawnee tribal members back to their ancestral lands.” During the luncheon, Tom Hoegemeyer, described as a geneticist “whose family operates a large Nebraska seed corn company” and who “is chairman of a U.S. group working to enhance U.S. germplasm of corn,” gave a keynote in which, among other things, he said that

“We’ll do everything in our power to address the Pawnee corn.”

Pawnee corn is an issue because

Attempts to grow the tribe’s traditional varieties have had mixed results. Some seeds will not germinate, EchoHawk said.

EchoHawk is

the Pawnee’s director of education and is one of three women known as the “corn sisters” because they are attempting to revive the strains of corn the tribe grew on its ancestral lands in Nebraska.

As I say, intriguing. And fascinating. I want to know more. What’s wrong with the Pawnee’s corn, exactly? Stay tuned.

Extra information: More on the rescuing of Pawnee corn and Pawnee corn pix.

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Features: Ug99

Dave Wood comments on UG99 myths, and then adds, perhaps provocatively, that

The current fashion for the on-farm conservation of crop diversity ignores the inevitable conservation of diverse plant diseases, some of which, like Ug99 of wheat, can cross continents on the wind and threaten crop production globally.

“Ignores” may be a bit strong here. Is not (one of the) explicit point(s) of on-farm conservation to allow continued co-evolution of crop and pest? On-farmers, over to you!

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BBC’s Farm Swap is online

That BBC radio documentary about farmers trying to learn from each other is out at last.

In Farm Swap, Mike Gallagher meets two farmers who are working outside their own countries.

They are both prepared to experience a new environment but for very different reasons.

You can listen online or download a podcast.

In part one Pedro, an idealistic young Ecuadorian farmer, visits Hawaii…

During his 4 month visit to Hawaii, Pedro visits a coffee plantation and learns how to encourage sustainable agriculture.

But as well as discovering new farming techniques and sharing experiences to take back to Ecuador, what can Pedro teach Hawaiian farmers in return?

As I said before, I think farmer-to-farmer exchanges are potentially a great way to learn. I’ll be tuning in.

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Chile pepper domestication investigated

I haven’t read the paper on Capsicum annuum domestication by Seung-Chul Kim and colleagues in the June 2009 issue of the American Journal of Botany, but the EurekAlert piece on it is definitely intriguing. I was particularly struck by the finding that genetic differentiation between geographically distant populations is higher for the cultivated than for the wild species. That may be because people don’t move pepper seeds nearly as far as birds. Also, it seems this particular pepper should be included in the lengthening list of crops that were probably domesticated in more than one place. Need to get that pdf.