Biofuels – Page 3 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

August 6, 2020August 7, 2020

Switched on switchgrass

Do you live in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, eastern Indiana, western Ohio, eastern Iowa, western North Dakota, eastern Montana, northern Wisconsin, northern Michigan, or the southern Appalachian mountains? Basically the gappy areas below.

Ok, now, do you have any switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) around where you are? Might look something like this.

By Warren Gretz, DOE/NREL – National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Public Domain.

If so, Dr David Lowry at Michigan State University would like to hear from you.

NOTE: In the interest of full disclosure, I had to change the photo because I uploaded the wrong species having dowloaded a number of different ones from Wikipedia. Thanks to Dave Wood for pointing that out. I originally did it in a hurry and wasn’t paying close enough attention. Sorry.

March 23, 2020March 19, 2020

Brainfood: Rotations, Sunflower conservation, Wild lentils, Iranian sheep, Crispy rice, Macrotyloma preferences, Cenchrus diversity, Livestock systems, Morning glories, Freezing nuts, SOTW-AB, ABS

Long-Term Evidence Shows that Crop-Rotation Diversification Increases Agricultural Resilience to Adverse Growing Conditions in North America. Meaning higher maize yields in droughts.
Gene banks for wild and cultivated sunflower genetic resources. Details from the US, France and Serbia, summary info from Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany, India, Romania, Russia, Spain. Reference genomes and high throughput phenotyping for the wild relatives on the horizon.
Evaluation and identification of wild lentil accessions for enhancing genetic gains of cultivated varieties. About 10% of 96 wild lentil accessions conserved in India are good for something.
Genetic structure of Iranian indigenous sheep breeds: insights for conservation. 8 breeds should be the focus of conservation efforts, as the trend is towards homogenization.
CRISPR-mediated accelerated domestication of African rice landraces. Started with well-known African sativa landrace Kabre and messed with total of 4 loci for plant height, seed size and yield, resulting in mutants with better grain yield.
Farmers’ Preferences for Genetic Resources of Kersting’s Groundnut [Macrotyloma geocarpum (Harms) Maréchal and Baudet] in the Production Systems of Burkina Faso and Ghana. They depend on the ethnic group.
Genotyping-By-Sequencing Reveals Population Structure and Genetic Diversity of a Buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris L.) Collection. Structure in the ILRI collection is not straightforwardly geographical. My guess is that rainfall is involved. Oh, and we have a core collection now.
Improved feeding and forages at a crossroads: Farming systems approaches for sustainable livestock development in East Africa. We need the above, and more, at scale.
A foundation monograph of Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae) in the New World. 425 spp, many of them, in different clades, with storage roots, and little known.
Morpho-Physiological and Genomic Evaluation of Juglans Species Reveals Regional Maladaptation to Cold Stress. Gonna need a bigger collection.
Declining biodiversity for food and agriculture needs urgent global action. The The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture summarized: it’s essential, it’s declining, we’re not doing enough.
Rethink the expansion of access and benefit sharing. Just maybe this is a/the reason?

January 27, 2020January 27, 2020

Brainfood: AnGR treble, Livestock aDNA, Wild cucurbit gaps, Indian crop diversity, Wild Argentinian spuds, Wild wheat, Tomato domestication, Enset systems, Duckweed collections, Peanut hybrids, Sweet potato leaves, Adaptation pathways, Golden Rice

Enhancing the functioning of farm animal gene banks in Europe: results of the IMAGE project. Lots going on, but avian species in particular need more work.
Conservation and Utilization of Livestock Genetic Diversity in the United States of America through Gene Banking. Over 1,000,000 samples from over 55,000 animals, representing 165 livestock and poultry breeds, collected over 60 years, more than 50% of rare breeds.
Cryoconservation of Animal Genetic Resources in Europe and Two African Countries: A Gap Analysis. Out of the 2949 breeds registered in DAD-IS, 16% have material in genebanks, but only 4% have enough to allow breed reconstitution.
Unlocking the origins and biology of domestic animals using ancient DNA and paleogenomics. How we got to the above.
Distributions, conservation status, and abiotic stress tolerance potential of wild cucurbits (Cucurbita L.). 13 out of 16 taxa need in situ and ex situ work.
Wild potato Genetic Reserves in Protected Areas: prospection notes from Los Cardones National Park, Salta, Argentina. Nice combination of in situ and ex situ.
Agricultural intensification was associated with crop diversification in India (1947-2014). But only at country level, and not by much. At district level, crop diversity went down in rice/wheat areas and up in the south and west as oilseeds and vegetables replaced millet and sorghum. Doesn’t strike me as positive overall, diversity-wise.
From population to production: 50 years of scientific literature on how to feed the world. Time for a bit of holism.
Unlocking the Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of a Wild Gene Source of Wheat, Aegilops biuncialis Vis., and Its Relationship With the Heading Time. 5 ecogeographic clusters, 4 related heading time groups.
Genomic Evidence for Complex Domestication History of the Cultivated Tomato in Latin America. Domestication of northerly migrating wildish material in Mexico rather than 2-step domestication in S America and then Mexico.
Enset‐based agricultural systems in Ethiopia: A systematic review of production trends, agronomy, processing and the wider food security applications of a neglected banana relative. Better data needed, for a start.
Worldwide Genetic Resources of Duckweed: Stock Collections. 36 species, no less. Need more?
Realizing hybrids between the cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) and its distantly related wild species using in situ embryo rescue technique. You need to apply growth substances to the pollinated flowers.
The remarkable morphological diversity of leaf shape in sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas): the influence of genetics, environment, and G×E. Genetics controls shape, environment size.
Adaptation and development pathways for different types of farmers. Watch your context, and don’t forget governance.
Golden Rice and technology adoption theory: A study of seed choice dynamics among rice growers in the Philippines. They forgot context. And governance. But let the author spell it out in a tweet thread.

December 16, 2019January 6, 2020

Brainfood: Diversification, Chefs, African rice breeding, Sustainable livestock, Miscanthus origin, Sweetpotato diversity, Wild banana seeds, Olive diversity, Tilapia diversity, Half Earth, Food access, Speedy pigeonpea, Peanut allergy, Colombian seed saving

Modelling crop diversification and association effects in agricultural systems. Intercrop, people!
Cooking up Diverse Diets: Advancing Biodiversity in Food and Agriculture through Collaborations with Chefs. Yeah, yeah, chefs are great. Now show me the data.
Multivariate analysis and selection criteria for identification of African rice (Oryza glaberrima) for genetic improvement of indica rice cultivars. Go for high number of productive tillers and early maturity.
Strategies for Sustainable Use of Indigenous Cattle Genetic Resources in Southern Africa. Not just genetic improvement: also need better nutrition, healthcare, marketing, and infrastructure; integration and empowerment of women and youth; and capacity building, regulatory, and policy frameworks. Not unlike crops, really.
Population structure of Miscanthus sacchariflorus reveals two major polyploidization events, tetraploid-mediated unidirectional introgression from diploid M. sinensis, and diversity centred around the Yellow Sea. The centre of origin in under water.
Remote sensing for agricultural applications: A meta-review. Yeah, yeah. Call me when you have a way of distinguishing landraces from modern varieties.
Genetic Diversity of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam) Germplasms Collected Worldwide Using Chloroplast SSR Markers. 500 is not enough.
Seed germination and storage studies in seed-fertile Musa indandamanensis and its conservation. Intermediate.
Cultivated olive diversification at local and regional scales: evidence from the genetic characterization of French genetic resources. Areas with unexpected frosts have been, paradoxically, good for olive diversity.
Genetic diversity of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) throughout West Africa. Corresponds to river basins. Well there’s a shocker.
Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people. Add lowest-footprint pixels to PAs until you get to 50% coverage of each ecoregion, then count how many people live in PAs, for good or ill.
Food Access Deficiencies in Sub-saharan Africa: Prevalence and Implications for Agricultural Interventions. Livestock helps, higher income not necessarily.
Can a speed breeding approach accelerate genetic gain in pigeonpea? I’m going to guess yes.
Hypoallergen Peanut Lines Identified Through Large-Scale Phenotyping of Global Diversity Panel: Providing Hope Toward Addressing One of the Major Global Food Safety Concerns. Lots of diversity to play with.
Revolturas: resisting multinational seed corporations and legal seed regimes through seed-saving practices and activism in Colombia. Everybody’s at it.

December 9, 2019November 28, 2019

Brainfood: Accessibility data smorgasbord, Microclimate megadataset, Breeding strategies, Aeroponic cassava, Jatropha conservation, Wheat diversity, Botanic gardens, Polyploid duo, Rhizosphere symbiosis, Selfing niches, Pepper priorities, Eggplant core, Ipomoea evolution, Kenyan supermarkets

A suite of global accessibility indicators. How long it takes to get from anywhere in the world to settlements of different size. Or took, in 2015.
A method for computing hourly, historical, terrain‐corrected microclimate anywhere on Earth. Why you might want to move in the first place.
Genetic strategies for improving crop yields. “Valuable genetic diversity for increasing crop resilience resides in cultivated landraces, heirloom varieties and the wild relatives of crops.”
A low-cost aeroponic phenotyping system for storage root development: unravelling the below-ground secrets of cassava (Manihot esculenta). But sometimes you have to work hard to get at it: case in point.
High SNP diversity in the non-toxic indigenous Jatropha curcas germplasm widens the potential of this upcoming major biofuel crop species. And here’s another.
Genome-wide variation patterns between landraces and cultivars uncover divergent selection during modern wheat breeding. In China and Pakistan anyway.
Plant populations of three threatened species experience rapid evolution under ex situ cultivation. So don’t cultivate, store seeds instead. Or as well.
Genes derived from ancient polyploidy have higher genetic diversity and are associated with domestication in Brassica rapa. Polyploidy pre-adapts plants for domestication.
Genome duplication effects on functional traits and fitness are genetic context and species dependent: studies of synthetic polyploid Fragaria. Case in point.
A mutualistic interaction between Streptomyces bacteria, strawberry plants and pollinating bees. The rhizosphere protects.
Do selfing species have greater niche breadth? Support from ecological niche modeling. Yes indeed.
Modelled distributions and conservation status of the wild relatives of chile peppers (Capsicum L.). 50% are high priority for conservation. No word on their mating systems.
Construction of a core collection of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) based on genome-wide SNP and SSR genotypes. From 893 to 100, in 4 geographical clusters.
A taxonomic monograph of Ipomoea integrated across phylogenetic scales. A whole bunch of new species, and evidence that some 60 species independently developed storage roots before humans were even around. Yes, even sweetpotato.
Supermarket food purchases and child nutrition in Kenya. Not a bad thing.