- 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.
Brainfood: Impact, Dietary guidelines, Diversity & diet, Wild cotton, Wild soybean, Italian rice & apples, Holstein genebank, Sugarcane evaluation, Quinoa boom, Bean landrace double, Brazilian fruits, Habitat restoration, Mixtures & pests
- Systematic review of the effects of agricultural interventions on food security in northern Ghana. The effects are minimal in the few cases where they have been measured.
- Food and nutrient gaps in rural Northern Ghana: Does production of smallholder farming households support adoption of food-based dietary guidelines? No, especially for vegetables, so another example of the above. Also, diversity of household production positively correlated with food and nutrient coverage but neither with children’s dietary diversity and nutrient adequacy.
- Farm-Level Agricultural Biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes Is Associated with Greater Odds of Women Achieving a Minimally Diverse and Micronutrient Adequate Diet. Associated.
- Natural Variation in Wild Gossypium Species as a Tool to Broaden the Genetic Base of Cultivated Cotton. Cotton needs an infusion of diversity.
- Wild Soybeans: An Opportunistic Resource for Soybean Improvement. As above, but time is running out because the wild relatives are often weedy.
- Evolutionary trends and phylogenetic association of key morphological traits in the Italian rice varietal landscape. Again, likely shrinking, but for different reasons.
- Genetic characterization of the apple germplasm collection in Central Italy: the value of local varieties. 25 duplicates among 175 accessions from 10 collections. How many are still in orchards?
- Value of the Dutch Holstein Friesian germplasm collection to increase genetic variability and improve genetic merit. More useful to increase genetic diversity than value.
- Identification and Evaluation of Resistance to Sugarcane Streak Mosaic Virus (SCSMV) and Sorghum Mosaic Virus (SrMV) in Excellent Sugarcane Innovation Germplasms in China. Some are more excellent than others.
- The quinoa boom in Peru: Will land competition threaten sustainability in one of the cradles of agriculture? Looks like it.
- Recovery of a common bean landrace (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) for commercial purposes. Spain’s “Caparrona de Monzón”, to be precise. Interesting, but surely a challenge to scale up. No fear of a Caparrona Boom, I suspect.
- The Nutritional Content of Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Landraces in Comparison to Modern Varieties. Some are better. No word on whether the above approach will be tried on these beans in Turkey.
- Fruits of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: allying biodiversity conservation and food security. Plinia edulis looks like it might be worth a try, Campomanesia hirsuta maybe not so much.
- Restoring to the future: Environmental, cultural, and management trade‐offs in historical versus hybrid restoration of a highly modified ecosystem. Hybrid (native + exotic plants) is better than nothing.
- Pest suppression in cultivar mixtures is influenced by neighbor‐specific plant‐plant communication. Volatiles from one barley genotype can lead to aphid suppression on neighbours of a different genotype.
Brainfood: NUS crackers, Genomic prediction, Chicken double, Wild German celery, Cretan sheep, Boricua papaya, Sorghum breeding, Wheat breeding, Italian carrots, Mining barley, Onion review, Fertilizers
- Development of value-added nutritious crackers with high antidiabetic properties from blends of Acha (Digitaria exilis) and blanched Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan). Putting orphan crops to work.
- A deep convolutional neural network approach for predicting phenotypes from genotypes. Artificial intelligence applied to genomic selection. Sexy enough for you?
- Genomic diversity dynamics in conserved chicken populations are revealed by genome-wide SNPs. Gotta watch those effective population sizes.
- Chicken semen cryopreservation and use for the restoration of rare genetic resources. Maybe a way to help with the above?
- Patterns of Genetic Diversity and Implications for In Situ Conservation of Wild Celery (Apium graveolens L. ssp. graveolens). 15 Most Appropriate Wild Populations out of 78. Still seems like a lot.
- Challenges for local breed management in Mediterranean dairy sheep farming: insights from Central Greece. Conservation through cross-breeding. But how long can it last?
- Genetic Diversity of Puerto Rican Farmer-held Papaya (Carica papaya) Using SSR Markers. I wonder how many are left after Maria.
- Breeding Sorghum for Diverse End Uses: Genetic Improvement of Grain Sorghum. More germplasm could be used.
- Harnessing genetic potential of wheat germplasm banks through impact-oriented-prebreeding for future food and nutritional security. Getting impact from “exotic” germplasm is possible. To be clear, I think that just means wild stuff.
- BiodiverSO: A Case Study of Integrated Project to Preserve the Biodiversity of Vegetable Crops in Puglia (Southern Italy). Saving the Polignano carrot.
- Genomics Approaches to Mining Barley Germplasm Collections. Management, cores, history. But we knew that.
- Allium Genetic Resources. Significant progress in data availability, cryopreservation protocols, health status and levels of evaluation. Maybe acquisition and exchange could be increased?
- Review: Taking stock of Africa’s second-generation agricultural input subsidy programs. 80 studies from 7 countries show that helping smallholders obtain fertilisers gives rapid but short-term and lower-than-expected increases in production. One reason is that yields don’t respond to fertilisation as much as they should. Is it because it’s mainly landraces?
Brainfood: Social media, Wheat double, Apple diversity, Land use change theory, Land use change praxis, Intensification, Ag metrics
- How Do Young Adults Engage With Science and Research on Social Media? Some Preliminary Findings and an Agenda for Future Research. Facebook, not Twitter. So I’m doing it all wrong? Any young adults reading this and want to tell me how I’m doing?
- Genetic dissection of grain zinc concentration in spring wheat for mainstreaming biofortification in CIMMYT wheat breeding. Two interesting regions on different chromosomes.
- Harnessing genetic potential of wheat germplasm banks through impact-oriented-prebreeding for future food and nutritional security. Not just Zn.
- Genetic analysis of a major international collection of cultivated apple varieties reveals previously unknown historic heteroploid and inbred relationships. The deep history of the justly famous UK collection.
- Middle-range theories of land system change. Towards a Grand Unified Theory. But do we need one?
- Classifying drivers of global forest loss. Commodities, basically. But what’s the good of that without a theory?
- The environmental costs and benefits of high-yield farming. Theory shtheory: measure externalities.
- Beyond Calories: A Holistic Assessment of the Global Food System. Micronutrients get lost disproportionately badly along the supply chain. How’s that for a theory?
Brainfood: Campesino maize, DELLA proteins, CC response, Nematodes, Collection duplication, Epidemics
- Evolutionary and food supply implications of ongoing maize domestication by Mexican campesinos. Effective population of 500 million plants potentially feeds 50 million people.
- Modulating plant growth–metabolism coordination for sustainable agriculture. Short AND sweet.
- Cracking the Code of Biodiversity Responses to Past Climate Change. Quite a bit of adaptation, not just migration and extinction.
- Plant-Parasitic Nematodes and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa. The greatest biotic threat to productivity on the continent, and probably going to get worse.
- Efficient curation of genebanks using next-generation sequencing reveals substantial duplication of germplasm accessions. Out of 1143 accessions of a wild wheat in 3 collections, 564 are unique.
- Emerging plant disease epidemics: Biological research is key but not enough. Not just about the money.