The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) invests £78m (€80m) in plant and crop research at universities and institutes across the UK, sometimes in the form of international partnerships. They have a pamphlet out called The Bioscience Behind Secure Harvests, highlighting “key BBSRC-supported research into achieving global food security.” There’s a lot on breeding, in particular as a way of adapting to climate change, and a section on “Harnessing natural diversity.” ((Actually that turns out to be mainly about Arabidopsis.)) There are even a couple of — albeit brief — references to the use of wild relatives in wheat breeding. But nothing at all on the conservation side of things. I guess the BBSRC figures that funding the long-term availability of the raw materials of all this breeding it is supporting is someone else’s problem.
Revising the US Plant Hardiness Zone Map
“All gardeners are in zone denial.”
The zones in question are the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Hardiness Zones, which show where different garden species are supposed to do well. Gardeners, of course, think they know better, and will always try to push that envelope.
Anyway, the current version of the Plant Hardiness Zone Map was done way back in 1990, and needed updating. So there’s a new one coming soon. It’s bound to be different, in places very different. A whole new set of recommendations for gardeners to go into denial about.
USDA is not describing what the new map will show, but outside experts say that the trend is for zones to shift northward. “Some places have definitely warmed, although others haven’t changed at all,” says Tony Avent, owner of North Carolina-based Plant Delights Nursery and an advisor for the revision.
You can’t do much with the current map online, but the next version will be downloadable to your GIS. It will also be more sophisticated, with better data, better interpolation and better resolution (800m):
The revised map draws on 30 years of data and uses a complex algorithm to factor in other variables that affect local temperatures, such as altitude and the presence of water bodies.
Will some of the USDA’s clonal repositories (field genebanks) find themselves in the wrong zone?
Featured: ABS policies
Cary Fowler suggests a novel approach to developing policies for access and benefit sharing:
Rather than start with the policies we may instinctively love and want, this pedigree shows us that we should begin with what we want to achieve, such as flood-tolerant rice, work backwards from there, and ask ourselves what policies will be needed to achieve such this rice, or UG99-resistant wheat, or low-toxin lathyrus, or…
Nibbles: Millet origins, Maize origins, Cowpea, Edible weeds, Watermelons
- Trace chemicals in Chinese dog bones from 7-8K years ago suggest a diet high in millet, and therefore its cultivation.
- Maize origins pushed back and down.
- A new cowpea system, including faster varieties, being tried out in Niger.
- It’s spring, and Italians’ thoughts starting to turn to eating weeds.
- “…his 3 wives and 20 children depend on the water melon business as means of livelihood.”
Research Into Use policy briefs online
DFID’s Research Into Use Programme has just come up with a crop of policy briefs on agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Several of them have agrobiodiversity relevance, if not themes.
- Policy Brief 1: Netting the benefits: the power of co-managing small fisheries (PDF 107 KB)
- Policy Brief 2: Future health: sustainable management of Africa’s medicinal plants (PDF 115 KB)
- Policy Brief 3: Forests, flows and water harvesting: replacing myths in watershed management (PDF 107 KB)
- Policy Brief 4: Improving farmers’ access to quality seed (PDF 117 KB)
- Policy Brief 5: Village forecasting of armyworm outbreaks saves crops (PDF 117 KB)
- Policy Brief 6: Credit for success: seed-yam production systems (PDF 115 KB)
- Policy Brief 7: Fighting storage insect pests in sub-Saharan Africa (PDF 119 KB)
- Policy Brief 8: Speeding dramatic change in rice fallows: low-input pulses where nothing grew before (PDF 107 KB)
- Policy Brief 9: Simple and successful: new seed-priming techniques boost farmers’ yields (PDF 116 KB)
- Policy Brief 10: Information and knowledge service markets: promoting rural innovation (PDF 291 KB)
Browsing RIU’s publications list, I was also struck by its Lessons from Pro-Poor Seed Systems in East Africa and Lessons from Plant Breeder and Farmer Partnerships.