- Global estimation of dietary micronutrient inadequacies: a modelling analysis. Maybe 5 billion people don’t get enough micronutrients from their diets, absent fortification and supplementation.
- Global analysis reveals persistent shortfalls and regional differences in availability of foods needed for health. There’s enough food in the world, but not enough healthy foods. Those 5 billion people would probably agree.
- A multicriteria analysis of meat and milk alternatives from nutritional, health, environmental, and cost perspectives. Pulses would seem to be a good bet as healthy foods.
- Spanish chickpea gene-bank seeds (Cicer arietinum L.) offer an enhanced nutritional quality and polyphenol profile compared with commercial cultivars. Yeah, but some pulses are better than others.
- Selection criteria and yield stability in a large collection of African yam bean [Sphenostylis stenocarpa (Hochst ex. A. Rich) Harms] accessions. Wait, abut about the nutritional content?
- Climate change and nutrition-associated diseases. We’re going to need a lot more healthy foods. I vote for African yam bean.
- Biofortification: Future Challenges for a Newly Emerging Technology to Improve Nutrition Security Sustainably. Biofortification is still not delivering enough more healthy foods. Will it ever? Jeremy available for comment.
- Do diverse crops or diverse market purchases matter more for women’s diet quality in farm households of Mali? Do both, of course. Jeremy nods sagely.
- The nexus between agroforestry landscapes and dietary diversity: insights from Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone. Do agroforestry too, while you’re at it.
- Trees on farms improve dietary quality in rural Malawi. No, really, agroforestry works.
- The effects of market-oriented farming on living standards, nutrition, and informal sharing arrangements of smallholder farmers: the case of African indigenous vegetables in Kenya. Well, at least incomes went up.
- Unveiling the bountiful treasures of India’s fruit genetic resources. Plenty of scope for putting more healthy foods on tables. Or more income in pockets. Who knows, with any luck, maybe both? But don’t forget the pulses and vegetables too.
Nibbles: Genebanks in South Africa, Ethiopia, Cherokee Nation, China, India, The Netherlands…
- South Africa ratifies the Plant Treaty. Hope its genebank goes from strength to strength.
- Ethiopia ratified a long time ago, and its genebank is going strong.
- Wouldn’t it be nice if the Cherokee Nation could ratify the Plant Treaty?
- Want to build a community genebank like the Cherokee Nation’s? Here’s a resource.
- China hasn’t ratified, but that hasn’t stopped it building genebanks.
- And using their contents, presumably.
- India has ratified, and is also building genebanks.
- The Netherlands ratified long ago, but I’m not sure if it has a water lentil (duckweed) collection, or if it does whether it’s in the Plant Treaty’s Multilateral System. But maybe it will, and it will be, soon. I hope so.
- The Dutch also have an animal genebank, BTW.
- Watermelons are not in the Plant Treaty’s Multilateral System, but maybe they should be.
- Neither is Trigonella, though many other temperate legume forages are, so who knows.
Brainfood: Diversity patterns double, Diversification drivers, Polish genetic erosion, Tibetan naked barley diversity, Indian sorghum diversity, Do novo domestication, Eggplant tree, Banana diversity, Pearl millet diversity, Pigeon pea genome, Grasspea genome, Jersey bull diversity
- Floristic classifications and bioregionalizations are not predictors of intra-specific evolutionary patterns. You can’t use spatial structures in interspecific diversity to predict spatial structure in instraspecific diversity. Gotta do the hard work, there are no shortcuts.
- Intraspecific trait variability in wild plant populations predicts neither variability nor performance in a common garden. You can’t use intraspecific diversity in wild populations to predict how those populations will do elsewhere. Gotta do the hard work, there are no shortcuts.
- Farming for the future: Understanding factors enabling the adoption of diversified farming systems. Access to extension services, strong social networks, and perceived environmental benefits contribute to the diversification of farming systems, but their effects are context-specific. So yeah, you guessed it, you still gotta do the hard work.
- Changes in Plant Genetic Resources in the Southeast Region of Poland from the 1980s to 2023. I wonder which one(s) of the above has been missing in the Lubelskie Voivodeship.
- Abundant Genetic Diversity Harbored by Traditional Naked Barley Varieties on Tibetan Plateau: Implications in Their Effective Conservation and Utilization. I wonder which one(s) of the above has been most effective in the Tibetan Plateau.
- Genetic diversity in in situ and ex situ collections of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] landraces. I wonder which one(s) of the above has been most effective in norther Karnataka.
- Enhancing food security amid climate change through rewilding and de novo domestication. Sounds like hard work. But worth doing.
- Characteristics of the ET, a new species created by interspecific hybridization of two wild eggplants. Sounds like hard work. But worth doing?
- Painting the diversity of a world’s favorite fruit: A next generation catalog of cultivated bananas. Chromosome painting, that is. Definitely worth doing.
- Delineation of selection efficiency and coincidence of multi-trait-based models in a global germplasm collection of pearl millet for a comprehensive assessment of stability and high performing genotypes. Stable AND high-yielding? Sounds like the hard work has been done.
- Chromosome-scale reference genome of an ancient landrace: unveiling the genetic basis of seed weight in the food legume crop pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan). Now for the hard work…
- A chromosome-scale reference genome of grasspea (Lathyrus sativus). Now for the even harder work…
- Assessment of genetic diversity, inbreeding, and collection completeness of Jersey bulls in the US National Animal Germplasm Program. I suspect it will be hard work, but don’t forget the low merit bulls. And that probably goes for plants too.
Nibbles: KC Bansal, Mike Jackson, Spain strawberry genebank, Ho-Chunk maize, Heritage varieties, Roman apples, Hazelnut breeding, Old rye, Serbia grapevine herbarium, Horse domestication, Mt Vernon fruits, Worldwide Day of Botanical Art, Pre-colonial African agriculture
- Prof. KC Bansal, who used to run the Indian national genebank, gets a much-deserved UNESCO honour.
- Friend-of-the-blog Dr Mike Jackson on running a rice genebank. UNESCO honour for him too?
- Spain’s strawberry genebank gets its 15 minutes.
- University and Native American nation collaborate on regenerating heritage corn varieties.
- The pros and cons of heritage varieties, according to an American farmer.
- Did the ancient Romans have heritage apples?
- Beautifully written piece on the use of heritage varieties — and much else besides — in breeding hazelnuts in the US. If you only read one of these Nibbles, read this one.
- Old shipwrecked rye seeds may end up in whiskey. Best place for them.
- Old Serbian grapevine herbarium samples should stay right where they are.
- Old horses most certainly did not stay where they were. But where was that exactly?
- Not sure where old bottled fruit from Washington’s estate will end up. The DNA lab maybe, like those Serbian grapevines?
- There’s going to be a Worldwide Day of Botanical Art on May 18, 2025. Rejoice.
- Decolonizing food insecurity in West Africa.
Nibbles: China grasslands, Edible lily, Ag data, China potatoes, CIP genebank, Vavilov book, Ghana seeds, Nutrition enterprises, Seed production films, Khoury pod, Relais & Châteaux
- China rehabilitates its grasslands.
- Not content with that, China breeds a new edible lily.
- Not sure what food group lilies are in, but farmers are growing more fruits and vegetables, it seems.
- Still not resting on its lilies, China breeds climate-smart potatoes.
- No doubt CIP and its genebank is helping with that.
- There’s a new book on Vavilov and his genebank. He knew a thing or two about potatoes.
- Ghana is totally on board with the whole genebank thing. And the Dutch are helping.
- Genebanks should hook up with small- and medium-sized enterprises for nutrition. What, not large ones?
- Genebanks also need nice education films on seed production.
- Friend-of-the-blog Colin Khoury interviewed on In Defence of Plants podcast.
- Luxury hotels and restaurants hook up with UNESCO to protect biodiversity. Vavilov would have been so proud.