- Seaweed cultivation: potential and challenges of crop domestication at an unprecedented pace. I for one welcome our new algal overlords.
- Recent advances in understanding the genetic resources of sheep breeds locally-adapted to the UK uplands: opportunities they offer for sustainable productivity. Lower susceptibility to Maedi-Visna virus, for example.
- Back to the wilds: Tapping evolutionary adaptations for resilient crops through systematic hybridization with crop wild relatives. The promiscuity of plants will save us.
- Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis): a source of high-quality protein for food security and novel food products. All 49 varieties tested have full spectrum of essential amino acids.
- Predicting changes in the distribution and abundance of species under environmental change. Distributions are not enough, can adapt some methods to look at abundance too. Oh, and intraspecific diversity.
- Barnyard millet — a potential food and feed crop of future. Decline in cultivation could be reversed due to nutritional quality and adaptability, but it won’t be easy.
- Inclusion of Fermented Foods in Food Guides around the World. The benefits should be better known.
- Discovery and genetic analysis of non-bitter Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum Gaertn.) with trace-rutinosidase activity. Wow, a non-bitter buckwheat found in Nepal! Should now be possible to produce some better-tasting improved varieties. Yeah but you know how long that usually takes…
- Breeding of ‘Manten-Kirari’, a non-bitter and trace-rutinosidase variety of Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum Gaertn.). Well I feel foolish…
- Higher iron pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum L.) provides more absorbable iron that is limited by increased polyphenolic content. High Fe is not enough.
- Characteristics of Egg-related Traits in the Onagadori (Japanese Extremely Long Tail) Breed of Chickens. It’s a “Special National Natural Treasure” of Japan and no wonder.
- Exploitation of yield stability in barley. It’s not really feasible to measure it accurately, and therefore select for it, but when you do, it seems hybrids are better at it.
Brainfood: Cassava descriptors, Core collections, Oat breeding, Indigenous fruits, Sandalwood in Fiji, Eggplant diversity treble, Globally important mushrooms, High amylose rice, Chickpea diversity, Finger millet diversity, Lethal yellowing, Spanish peppers, Local potato experts
- Selection of the most informative morphoagronomic descriptors for cassava germplasm. From 51 to 32. Hardly seems worth it. And dropping descriptors can be dangerous.
- Advances in core collection of plant germplasm resources. In Chinese, alas, but it sounds intriguing.
- Trends in breeding oat for nutritional grain quality – An overview. You want high β-glucan, and you can get it by breeding for high yield, luckily. A. atlantica has high β-glucan.
- Indigenous Fruit Trees of Tropical Africa: Status, Opportunity for Development and Biodiversity Management. Need for “exploiting the under-tapped treasuries of IFT.” Still? People have been saying that for years. They’ve even designated agroforestry systems as globally important and everything.
- Promoting Santalum yasi Seeman (Sandalwood or yasi) in agroforestry systems to reverse agrodeforestation in Fiji. An attempt to introduce a high value species into a threatened agroforestry system. Not just fruit, then.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of wild/weedy eggplant (Solanum insanum, Solanaceae) in southern India: Implications for conservation. Quite a lot of geneflow.
- The potential for crop to wild hybridization in eggplant (Solanum melongena; Solanaceae) in southern India. Transgenes from the crop could spread to the wild relative.
- Variation in Antioxidant Activity and Flavonoid Aglycones in Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) Germplasm. So, the leaves are good for you. But I suspect they taste like crap.
- The Qingyuan Mushroom Culture System as Agricultural Heritage. Would pay money to see that.
- Selecting High Amylose Rice Germplasm Combined with NIR Spectroscopy at the RDA Genebank Conserved. From 9481 to 14 with high amylose and decent agronomy. But why bother?
- Field response of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) to high temperature. There are some heat tolerant lines in the ICRISAT genebank.
- Genetic diversity in East African finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn) landraces based on SSR markers and some qualitative traits. The diversity is high, mainly within countries, and missing from the ICRISAT minicore. Naughty.
- Analyses based on the 16S rRNA and secA genes identify a new phytoplasma subgroup associated with a lethal yellowing-type disease of coconut in Côte d’Ivoire. The international genebank is threatened.
- New Insights into Capsicum spp Relatedness and the Diversification Process of Capsicum annuum in Spain. Limited genetic diversity has differentiated in Spain into pungent, elongated peppers in the South and Center, and sweet, blocky and triangular types in the North.
- Knowing native potatoes: finding local experts through innovative methods in the Peruvian Andes. Community Biodiversity Register methodology applied to potato landraces. Don’t see anything much new here, but good to have it nicely documented.
Brainfood: Amorphophallus diversity, Physiological phenotyping, Jatropha diversity, Ass origins, Prickly lettuce diversity, Sugarcane in vitro, Pennisetum diversity, ABS and Norway, Seed storage behaviour, Barley diversity, Lentil diversity, Bilberry characterization, Potato genomics, Asian horse ABS
- Cytotaxonomic investigations to assess diversity and evolution in Amorphophallus Blume ex Decne. (Araceae). Out of 25 accessions and 7 wild species, “A. dubius may be the immediate ancestor of cultivated forms.”
- Physiological phenotyping of plants for crop improvement. High-throughput phenotyping is only the start.
- Geographic origin is not supported by the genetic variability found in a large living collection of Jatropha curcas with accessions from three continents. 900 global accessions fall into 2 genetic groups, but not related to geography.
- Genetic diversity of donkey populations from the putative centers of domestication. Sudan and/or Yemen.
- Genetic and Biochemical Evaluation of Natural Rubber from Eastern Washington Prickly Lettuce (Lactuca serriola L.). I look forward to seeing those rubber lettuce plantations.
- An approach on the in vitro maintenance of sugarcane with views for conservation and monitoring of plant nuclear DNA contents via flow cytometry. It’s possible to conserve sugarcane in vitro, but it won’t be straightforward.
- Geographical Gaps and Diversity in Deenanath Grass (Pennisetum pedicellatum Trin.) Germplasm Conserved at the ICRISAT Genebank. 194 provinces in 21 countries? That’s a lot of gaps.
- Realizing access and benefit sharing from use of genetic resources between diverging international regimes: the scope for leadership. As supplied by Norway, that is.
- Classification of seed storage behaviour of 67 Amazonian tree species. 1000-seed weight and seed moisture content at shedding are good, together, at predicting seed storage behaviour.
- Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in a Legacy Collection of Spring Barley Landraces Adapted to a Wide Range of Climates. 10 climatic clusters.
- Assessment of genetic variation within a global collection of lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) cultivars and landraces using SNP markers. Geographic pattern for commercial varieties, but not for landraces.
- Omne Ignotum pro Magnifico: characterization of commercial Bilberry extracts to fight adulteration. That would be Vaccinium myrtillus. You need to keep a sharp eye on the whole production process.
- The Contribution of the Solanaceae Coordinated Agricultural Project to Potato Breeding. It boils down to the Infinium 8303 Potato SNP Array, and it’s contribution to potato breeding has apparently been important.
- Horses as Sources of Proprietary Information: Commercialization, Conservation, and Compensation Pursuant to the Convention on Biological Diversity. You need a value chain with “a sequence of proprietary rights agreements governed and regulated by both tangible and intangible property regimes.” Well, yeah.
Brainfood: Organic convergence, Wine yeast diversity, Cassava genome, Potato wild relatives, PREDICTS predicts, Seed cryo, Community seedbanks, Maize OPV evolution, Conservation conflict, Biofortification
- Organic and Non-Organic Farming: Is Convergence Possible? Yes, but conversion is more likely.
- The vintage effect overcomes the terroir effect: a three years survey on the wine yeast biodiversity in Franciacorta and Oltrepò Pavese, two Northern Italian vine-growing areas. Year more important than place as determinant of yeast diversity.
- Cassava genome from a wild ancestor to cultivated varieties. The genes that have been selected are the ones you’d think. And here’s the thing actually being used.
- Taxonomy and Genetic Differentiation among Wild and Cultivated Germplasm of Solanum sect. Petota. The genes that have been selected are the ones you’d think. Oh, and the taxonomy is fine.
- The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts. Could prove useful. But it doesn’t look like the data is available yet.
- C-2001: Survival of short-lived desiccation tolerant seeds during long-term storage in liquid nitrogen: Implications for the management and conservation of plant germplasm collections. It’s not always great.
- Ensuring food security in the small islands of Maluku: A community genebank approach. Won’t be easy.
- Evaluation of Evolution and Diversity of Maize Open-Pollinated Varieties Cultivated under Contrasted Environmental and Farmers’ Selection Pressures: A Phenotypical Approach. Maize OPVs changed a bit in farmers’ fields over 3 years, but not in how they looked.
- Conservation planning in agricultural landscapes: hotspots of conflict between agriculture and nature. Threatened mammals and cropland areas where yield gap is highest are, not surprisingly, mostly found together in sub-Saharan Africa. I wonder if the same could be said for threatened crop wild relatives?
- Biofortification for Selecting and Developing Crop Cultivars Denser in Iron and Zinc. Current strategy is QTL detection followed by MAS, but much more downstream work on processing, extension and acceptance needed.
Brainfood: Safflower diversity, Afghan wheat diversity, Cassava diversity, SP drought tolerance, Olive diversity, Community genebanks, Organic yield meta-analysis, On farm success, Standardizing phenotyping, Wild collecting
- Assessment of Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in a Global Reference Collection of 531 Accessions of Carthamus tinctorius L. (Safflower) Using AFLP Markers. Bayesian analysis of genetic diversity of global (43 countries) collection held in India reveals 19 geographic groups, with most diversity in the Near East and Iran–Afghanistan regions.
- Molecular evaluation of orphan Afghan common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) landraces collected by Dr. Kihara using single nucleotide polymorphic markers. Analysis (Bayesian, natch) of genetic diversity of over 400 wheat landraces collected 1950-1970 and conserved at the Kihara Institute for Biological Research, Japan reveals agroecological patterning and hotspot in Badakhshan province.
- Sources of pest resistance in cassava. Analysis of 89 trials over 25 years involving the CIAT cassava collection identifies 129 landraces with high resistance to thrips, 33 to green mites and 19 to whiteflies.
- Screening sweetpotato genotypes for tolerance to drought stress. Days to permanent wilting point (DPWP) points to 8 promising clones in Kenya.
- Olive domestication and diversification in the Mediterranean Basin. About 400 wild and cultivated accessions divide up into W, central and E groups and show evidence of admixture among them and local domestication events.
- The Multiple Functions and Services of Community Seedbanks. More than just conservation.
- Diversification practices reduce organic to conventional yield gap. More data and fancier maths finds a lower organic yield gap (20%), which is halved by multi-cropping and crop rotations.
- Conserving landraces and improving livelihoods: how to assess the success of on farm conservation projects? All you need is two graphs.
- Finding Our Way through Phenotypes. “We urge all biologists, data managers, and clinicians to actively support the development, evaluation, refinement, and adoption of methodologies, tools, syntaxes, and standards for capturing and computing over phenotypic data and to collaborate in bringing about a coordinated approach.” Amen.
- Wild food in Europe: A synthesis of knowledge and data of terrestrial wild food as an ecosystem service. 65 million people collect, and at least 100 million consume, wild food. But only 81 plants? Thought it would be more. But even so, quite an ecosystem service.