Breeding

April 3, 2019April 3, 2019

Germplasm alert!

Normally I would put this sort of stuff in a Brainfood, but the most recent issue of Genetic resources and Crop Evolution had no fewer than 4 papers alerting readers to the existence of interesting germplasm of important crops, so I decided to share them all together now rather than wait:

Interspecific yam hybrids with anthracnose resistance from the Pacific.
Bread wheat from India: “Accession No. IC128643 was found to be the most promising accession that has resistance against three rusts, powdery mildew, Karnal bunt, loose smut and spot blotch. Accession no. IC36900, IC397999 and IC416249 showed resistance against three rusts, powdery mildew, Karnal bunt and loose smut while accession no. IC415971 and IC415977 showed resistance against three rusts, powdery mildew, spot blotch and loose smut.”
Evaluation of Vigna collections at VIR.
Super early pigeonpea from ICRISAT.

If you request any of this germplasm from the genebanks or researchers involved because of this alert, do let me know.

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019

Brainfood: Pig diversity, Mutant peanut, Coffee sustainability, PVP, Agricultural conversion double, Citrus phytosanitary, Vanilla genome, Veggie evaluation, Indian TR4, Wtk1, Dietary diversity, Canola origins, Ecuadorian quinoa, Alfalfa evaluation, Underused yam

Assessing Sus scrofa diversity among continental United States, and Pacific islands populations using molecular markers from a gene banks collection. The feral pigs of the Pacific may be a nuisance, but they represent an interesting genetic melange.
Identification of a mutant from Arachis veigae with enhanced seed oleic and very long-chain fatty acid content. Gotta love crop wild relatives.
Coffee Farmers’ Motivations to Comply with Sustainability Standards. Show them the money.
The Globalisation of Plant Variety Protection: Are Developing Countries Still Policy Takers? Depends on how you look at it.
Grass to grain: Probabilistic modeling of agricultural conversion in the North American Great Plains. It’s still happening.
Spatial priorities for agricultural development in the Brazilian Cerrado: may economy and conservation coexist? See above.
Phytosanitary management of Citrus germplasm in France. Better safe than sorry.
Genomics-based diversity analysis of Vanilla species using a Vanilla planifolia draft genome and Genotyping-By-Sequencing. And just like that, there’s a new germplasm collection on the block. And it’s all genotyped.
Sources of Resistance for Two-spotted Spider Mite (Tetranychus urticae) in Scarlet (Solanum aethiopicum L.) and Gboma (S. macrocarpon L.) Eggplant Germplasms. They have glandular trichomes.
First detection of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense tropical race 4 (TR4) on Cavendish banana in India. Be afraid.
Wheat tandem kinases provide insights on disease‐resistance gene flow and host–parasite co‐evolution. The allele for resistance was left behind during domestication.
Systematic review of use and interpretation of dietary diversity indicators in nutrition-sensitive agriculture literature. Needs more standardization.
Whole-genome resequencing reveals Brassica napus origin and genetic loci involved in its improvement. Hybrid of the ancestor of European turnip and the common ancestor of kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, and Chinese kale.
Molecular characterization of Ecuadorian quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) diversity: implications for conservation and breeding. 3 groups, but no geographic structure.
Resilience, Stability, and Productivity of Alfalfa Cultivars in Rainfed Regions of North America. Difficult for a cultivar to be all three.
Dioscorea dumetorum (Kunth) Pax, a neglected and underutilized yam species in Benin: folk classification and post-harvest conservation. Needs work before it’s too late.

March 31, 2019April 8, 2019

Nibbles: Neolithic, Agroforestry, California dreaming, Not that pawpaw, Droning about salinity, Rocket science

Beer before bread? Sure, why not.
Melia is a big hit in Kenya. Must tell the mother-in-law.
California goes back to the acorn.
When it’s finished with that, it could try the stuff in this old orchard.
Unfortunately no pawpaw there. Yet.
No need to stress out about salinity, California.
Rucola doesn’t need California.

March 29, 2019March 29, 2019

Nibbles: Grapefruit breeding, Parent navel orange, Meyer lemon, USDA fruit collection, USDA art, Crop diversification, Kiwi genebank, Apple genealogy, Saffron

Grapefruit has hit bottom, grapefruit breeder says.
Here’s a solution: a fence.
What would Frank Meyer say about any of the above?
Or Todd Kennedy for that matter.
Botanical art at USDA. Beautiful. And probably a grapefruit in there.
Gear up for the European Conference on Crop Diversification, 18-21 September 2019 in Budapest, Hungary. Will grapefruit be on the menu?
Never mind about grapefruit, get a load of this kiwi fruit genebank.
Nice diagram of apple genealogy. Grapefruit next?
I bet saffron goes well with grapefruit. Yeah, forced, I know. Sue me.

March 25, 2019March 8, 2019

Brainfood: African rice domestication, Ancient aliens, Durum landraces, Horticultural landraces, Breeding double, Pollinator research, Sacred forests, Traditional Hawaiian ag, Conserving tomatoes, Mapping impacts, Rewilding, Economic growth, Aquaculture impacts, Phenotyping colours

The complex geography of domestication of the African rice Oryza glaberrima. Domesticated in multiple places, and the formerly putative ancestor population unlikely to be so.
Prehistoric cereal foods of southeastern Europe: An archaeobotanical exploration. Including Panicum millet as far back as the Bronze Age, interestingly.
Genetic diversity in Ethiopian Durum Wheat (Triticum turgidum var durum) inferred from phenotypic variations. Some landraces are better than some improved varieties, sometimes, somewhere.
Editorial: Rediscovering Local Landraces: Shaping Horticulture for the Future. See above.
Enhancing the rate of genetic gain in public-sector plant breeding programs: lessons from the breeder’s equation. What do they have to say about the genetic diversity term, I hear you ask? “For many species, the primary value of exotic genetic variation is the identification and deployment of rare alleles with large effects that can be introduced into elite breeding programs via a thoughtful implementation of marker-assisted selection…”
The many‐faced Janus of plant breeding. It’s more than just genetics.
The need for coordinated transdisciplinary research infrastructures for pollinator conservation and crop pollination resilience. Mine historical data and mobilize the citizenry.
Human disturbance impacts the integrity of sacred church forests, Ethiopia. Even the small forests are important.
The potential of indigenous agricultural food production under climate change in Hawaiʻi. They could have fed today’s population, and could still do so.
Managing plant genetic resources using low and ultra-low temperature storage: a case study of tomato. Nothing is perfect.
A spatial framework for ex-ante impact assessment of agricultural technologies. I do love a map, but I have to wonder if you can have too much of a good thing.
Why we should let rewilding be wild and biodiverse. Well, why not?
Increasing impacts of land use on biodiversity and carbon sequestration driven by population and economic growth. The 2008 financial crisis was good for biodiversity.
Rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions from the adoption of industrial-scale aquaculture. Crab ponds are worse than paddy fields for greenhouse gas emissions.
ColourQuant: a high-throughput technique to extract and quantify colour phenotypes from plant images. Remind me to tell you my story about characterizing the colours of a taro collection in Vanuatu.
Phenotypic analysis of leaf colours from the USDA, ARS sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas) germplasm collection. Never mind, this story is better.