- Seeds scoped in the Pacific. I doubt the region will feature much in the Access to Seeds Index. Not unless it features community seed production groups like Atauro in East Timor.
- Wanna reform the food system? Here’s the theory.
- And here’s the practice, at least for wheat (and bread). Though some would probably beg to differ.
- Blowing up African retail, one banana at the time.
- Biological control of coca. What could possibly go wrong.
- The reason for the holes in swiss cheese? We finally have the data.
- But personally I prefer halloumi.
- There are patents. There is PVP. And there are trademarks. A podcast on apple breeding, if you can believe it.
- A whole bunch of heirloom roses all in one place.
- Museum boffins find stale tea, Brits go ape.
- Go on, have an insect.
- Or maybe a nice piece of fish. While you can.
- Confused about the UNFCCC negotiations about agriculture? Farming First has you covered.
- Famine is history. Discuss.
- NSF toolkit for communicating science. Maybe I should have read this before Nibbling.
Catching up with CROPS 2015
The CROPS 2015 conference on Improving Agriculture Through Genomics in on. Actually it’s almost finished. Sorry. But you can read about the keynote. And follow what’s left on Twitter. Maybe someone will explain what’s wrong with China’s soybeans.
Nibbles: Youthful ideas, IK, Variety testing, GMO philosophy, Organic GMOs, Oline disease, Cacao doctors, US wheat, Cary Fowler, Bison renaissance, UCDavis, Andean grains, Alaskan ag, Lettuce latex, Collecting strategies, Pulses racing, Huitlacoche, Ecoagriculture, Bowel movement
- Australian yoofs make suggestions for a better agriculture. Not as bad as you might think.
- Emulate, don’t imitate, desert dwellers.
- Webinar on variety trialing.
- A philosopher tackles GMO labelling. Not many people hurt.
- Meanwhile, Pamela Ronald is trying to find a middle way.
- This Italian olive disease thing is getting worrying.
- Indonesians have their own problems with cacao, but at least they seem to be fixing them.
- And the US is gonna have trouble with wheat. The solution: plant maize? No, wait…
- The European bison is back!
- A decade of Plant Sciences at UCDavis.
- Call for more breeding of Andean grains. By an Andean grain breeder.
- “It might not be the Fertile Crescent when it comes to corn and potatoes, but south-central Alaska just might be the cradle of the coming Rhodiola renaissance.”
- Rubbery lettuce? Shhh, or everybody will want some.
- Can’t collect seed at random throughtout a population? Collect more!
- Yeah, yeah, it’s the International Year of Pulses, we get it.
- The Mexican truffle?
- Ecofarming pays. In Kenya. In 2014.
- Sometimes crop wild relatives are a real pain in the ass.
Nibbles: Biofortification, NUS, Wakehurst Place, Cheesy map, Seeds2Zim, Food bibliography, Eucalypt genome, Oregano in the US, CFC, Rotations, Malaria drugs, Quinoa in Colorado, Pacific pineapple, Rhubarb event, Mango festival, Araucaria, American chestnut, Potato casserole, Coffee breeding, Tulips galore, George Harrison Shull, Seed saving, Chinese agriculture, European agroforestry, Eat This Podcast
- Webinar on biofortification, today.
- Book on Asian underutilized plant species, which we somehow missed when it came out in 2014. Unless it didn’t.
- The Millennium Seed Bank isn’t just great in and of itself, it also sits in a wonderful garden: the man who has been keeping that going for the past decade has just retired. Best wishes!
- A map of French cheese. Internet surrenders.
- North Jersey donates organic seeds to Zimbabwe. In related news, they also sending coals to Newcastle.
- Online bibliography of food history. There goes the morning.
- All hail the eucalyptuzzzzz genome.
- The unintended consequences of WW2: oregano.
- Follow the construction of the Crops for the Future Centre HQ. Over 10 episodes, mind, so gird your loins.
- Breaking down crop rotation.
- Malaria drugs through the ages. Make mine a G&T.
- Yes, how is quinoa doing in Colorado?
- New pineapples for the Pacific. They’ll probably end up canned.
- Good news: Clumber Park has a Rhubarb Weekend. Bad news: we missed it. Ditto the Goa Mango Festival.
- Mapping every monkey puzzle tree in Britain. Well, someone has to.
- Transgenic chestnuts taking over New York State. You can bet someone’s going to map them.
- The US potato renaissance we all knew was happening finally hits the headlines.
- The latest on coffee improvement, including news from the CATIE collections.
- Tulipmania: The video.
- The father of hybrid corn.
- Would he have approved of saving seeds? I suspect yes.
- Chinese agriculture adds a few (thousand) years.
- Europe has agroforestry too, and lots of it.
- Think I missed something? Check if Jeremy caught it in his Tasty Morsels.
Saving the banana. Again
Australian banana farming changed forever last month. That’s because TR4 was detected on two farms in north Queensland, representing probably the greatest ever threat to the A$ 400 million industry.
Tropical race 4 (TR4) is the name given to the fungal strains of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc) that cause Fusarium wilt (popularly known as Panama disease) in Cavendish cultivars grown in tropical conditions.
Remember that Cavendish dominates the international banana trade. The spread of TR4 is seriously bad news, as recognized even by FAO.
Following the Australian report, someone asked on the ProMusa mailing list 1 whether the wild species might be a source of resistance. While admitting that he wasn’t fully up to date on developments, and pointing to some very recent literature, 2 Australian expert Dr David Jones had this to say:
As far as I am aware, wild Musa species have not been included in tropical race 4 screening trials except in the Northern Territory of Australia and then it was limited to six accessions of M. acuminata subspecies malaccensis. Of these six accessions, three were resistant and three susceptible. M. a. malaccensis grows wild in areas of Malaysia and Indonesia where it is believed Foc TR4 evolved.
More wild M. acuminata subspecies, other Musa species and pollen-producing, banana cultivars need to be screened as part of the global programme that is being developed to combat TR4. Germplasm with resistance could then be incorporated into conventional breeding projects. Others may have more information on proposed or active screening trials not available to me.
On the local front here in Australia, TR4 has been detected on another farm in North Queensland. The big worry is that it is on the Atherton Tableland in a completely different banana-growing district some 180 km by road from the Tully Valley, the scene of the first outbreak. The prognosis is not as good as it was, but we will have to wait and see what happens next.
Those involved with genetic engineering now have a golden opportunity to push their breeding techniques as the only way to save the global banana industry based on TR4 susceptible cultivars, notably Cavendish, even though no gene ready for insertion is guaranteed to work. If by some lucky chance a banana could be developed that has resistance, I have grave doubts about whether discerning consumers would be willing to eat the fruit. I think the big export fruit companies know this.
It has also often been said by proponents of GM bananas that there is no possibility of genes engineered into GM bananas ‘escaping’ into the environment because commercial cultivars are propagated asexually. I am wondering what would happen if GM bananas were grown in countries with wild bananas present in the adjacent bush, like Malaysia, Indonesia, PNG etc.? Isn’t there a risk that if pollen were released from GM plants it could fertilise nearby wild species?
So anyway, the wild might be a source of resistance, but so also are the Eastern African Highland bananas and plantains, apparently. Some will ask whether the Cavendish is worth saving at all, whether by biotechnological or conventional means, whether using wild or domesticated sources. But that’s another story.