- The Plant Treaty tries to enhance itself: the story so far.
- CIMMYT gets a podcast. Here’s one on blue maize.
- The Vavilov collection put to good use. Again.
- “Cow farts cause more climate change than cars.” Not really. Here comes the science, by way of a Twitter thread, of all things.
- The Pompeii eruption: August, or October? Here comes the archaeobotany, among other things, by way of a Twitter thread, of all things.
- It was World Apple Day or somesuch, so here’s two canonical feel-good heirloom apple stories.
- Fancy an open-access special issue of Biopreservation and Biobanking? Too nerdy? It’s on agricultural genebanks… Yeah, I thought you might.
Brainfood: Wild palm, Yield trends, Indigenous veggies double, Old goat grass, Saline soy, Carob history, Pesticidal plants, Rapeseed diversity, Livestock positives, Domestication syndrome, Kiwifruit evolution, Forest diversity
- Genetic structure of the Canarian palm tree (Phoenix canariensis) at the island scale: does the “island within islands” concept apply to species with high colonization abilities? High dispersal ability doesn’t always lead to high connectivity among populations.
- Uncertainties of potentials and recent changes in global yields of major crops resulting from census- and satellite-based yield datasets at multiple resolutions. Average overall annual yield increases of about 1.5% for maize, rice, wheat and soybean for 1981 to 2008 are uncertain and probably not sufficient.
- Indigenous underutilized vegetables for food and nutritional security in an island ecosystem. People in the the Andaman and Nicobar Islands eat a lot of different vegetables. Interestingly, most are perennial and a quarter are wild.
- Knowledge Loss and Change Between 2002 and 2017—a Revisit of Plant Use of the Maasai of Sekenani Valley, Maasai Mara, Kenya. But for how long will the above be true?
- Use of grass seed resources c.31 ka by modern humans at the Haua Fteah cave, northeast Libya. Including wild wheat relative(s).
- Soybean PI 675847 A as a new source of salt tolerance. But it can’t be the only one, surely?
- The carob tree at the crossroad of domestication center and refugia hypotheses. Out of the west, surprisingly.
- Pesticidal Plant Extracts Improve Yield and Reduce Insect Pests on Legume Crops Without Harming Beneficial Arthropods. Worth a try.
- Genome-wide selection footprints and deleterious variations in young Asian allotetraploid rapeseed. Asian rapeseed derived from European, diverged, introgressed, split into 2 groups.
- Essential amino acids: master regulators of nutrition and environmental footprint? If you take essential amino acids into account, livestock production doesn’t seem such a bad idea after all.
- Parallel selection on a dormancy gene during domestication of crops from multiple families. Cloned soybean dormancy gene also showed evidence of selection during domestication in rice and tomato.
- Two Likely Auto-Tetraploidization Events Shaped Kiwifruit Genome and Contributed to Establishment of the Actinidiaceae Family. And you can thank them for the high vitamin C content.
- Hydraulic diversity of forests regulates ecosystem resilience during drought. More diverse forests better at coping with dry spells.
Brainfood: Forests & diets, Homegardens & diets, Landsparing, NZ megafauna, Broomcorn millet origins, Aflatoxin in peanut, Sorghum nutrients, Sorghum & sugarcane diversity in Ethiopia, Hawaiian seedsaving, English sustainability, Wheat evaluation, Lentil review, Danish apples
- Impacts of forests on children’s diet in rural areas across 27 developing countries. Exposure to forests is good for dietary diversity.
- The Role of Homegardens for Food and Nutrition Security in Uganda. Homegardens too.
- The challenge of feeding the world while conserving half the planet. Sparing biodiversity-rich areas means food production will take a hit.
- Human Perceptions of Megafaunal Extinction Events Revealed by Linguistic Analysis of Indigenous Oral Traditions. The Maori were aware of what was happening to the moa.
- Perpetuating Agricultural Heritage: Saving Seeds and Stories on Hawai‘i Island. Diverse messaging needed to reflect diverse motivations. Maybe that would have helped the moa.
- Genetic evidence for a western Chinese origin of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum). Not northern China, nor eastern Europe.
- New tools to screen wild peanut species for aflatoxin accumulation and genetic fingerprinting. Let the screening begin.
- Identification of new donors for spot blotch resistance in cultivated wheat germplasm. 7 out of 1483 from the Indian collection. Hard row to hoe
- Nutritional variation in sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] accessions from southern Africa revealed by protein and mineral composition. Among 23 accessions, two are good for both Fe and Zn, a different one for protein, Ca and P, and a different one still for Ca and K.
- Farmers’ synergistic selection criteria and practices for livelihood security through the sustainable uses of onfarm Sorghum landrace diversity, Ethiopia. Diverse selection criteria reflect diverse uses.
- Sugarcane Landraces of Ethiopia: Germplasm Collection and Analysis of Regional Diversity and Distribution. Variation follows altitude. Compare and contrast with above.
- To what extent has sustainable intensification in England been achieved? Not much, and only quite recently.
- Lentils: Genetic Resources: Collection, Conservation, Characterization and Maintenance. More work on wild relatives needed.
- Population structure, relatedness and ploidy levels in an apple gene bank revealed through genotyping-by-sequencing. 78% of 349 apple accessions in the Danish genebank are unique.
Nibbles: Lathyrus project, Vegetables review, Aztec linguistics, Tree seeds, Ancient booze
- Grasspea gets some love.
- Hundreds of veggies still don’t, though.
- Deconstructing chocolate. The word, that is.
- Networking tree seeds in Rwanda.
- Drinking in Neolithic Britain.
Nibbles: Transformation, Restoration, Renumeration, Validation, Mensuration, Celebration, Visualization, Diversification, Fructification, Information, Fermentation, Sustentation, Association, Migration, Transformation, Microconservation
- Lawrence Haddad on how to start transforming the food system.
- Here’s an idea: CIMMYT genebank recognized for restoring agricultural diversity in Guatemala.
- And another. Cash transfers are better than more conventional interventions for malnutrition, but they have to be real money.
- But, of course, they don’t always work. That’s one of many development myths listed in this fun Twitter thread.
- We also need metrics, sure, but the right ones, and we may already have them.
- The first ecologist remembered. That would be Humboldt.
- Terrible visualizations of the changing geography of American agriculture.
- But where are heirloom grown? Rice, say?
- And where are all the pomegranate farmers?
- I’m sure there are plenty of grape maps of France somewhere. But what’s with all these varieties? And are there more than in pomegranate?
- IUCN launches a new Red List website.
- Laos launches a sort of Red List website on traditional foods. Here it is. No word on linkages with Ark of Taste.
- Belgian lambic beer threatened by climate change. Now it’s personal.
- In Italy, the landscape needs people to keep it safe.
- Even olive landscapes, which maybe need to be more promiscuous.
- Early agricultural migrations fuelled by cheese.
- Early eggplant migrations fuelled by elephants.
- Microbes to the rescue.