Breeding

May 7, 2018May 7, 2018

Taking the pulse of legume research

The 7th International Food Legumes Research Conference started yesterday in Marrakesh. Like the World Cup, they happen only every four years, and are eagerly awaited. Unlike the World Cup, Brazil doesn’t feature much, and you can’t follow along on TV with a beer. There is, however, Twitter.

A short summary of Day 1 at the International Food Legumes Research Conference #IFLRC2018 @iflrc: https://t.co/jikEKvuKcI pic.twitter.com/uWPnx4xQVT

— ICARDA (@ICARDA) May 6, 2018

May 7, 2018May 7, 2018

Brainfood: Genebanks genomics, Improving forages, 3000 rices, Sweet potato dispersal, Diversity on farm double, Herbaria double, Phenotyping box, Invasives, Meta-meta-analysis, Rice domestication, Soil depth

Role of genomics in promoting the utilization of plant genetic resources in genebanks. Genebanks don’t need to do genomics themselves to benefit from genomics.
Improving the Yield and Nutritional Quality of Forage Crops. Case in point.
Genomic variation in 3,010 diverse accessions of Asian cultivated rice. Case in point. Multiple independent domestications. Tomorrow, the world.
Sweet potato dispersal or human transport? Maybe no evidence one way or another after all. Rebuttal of: Reconciling Conflicting Phylogenies in the Origin of Sweet Potato and Dispersal to Polynesia. And the counter to the rebuttal. This genomics stuff not so easy after all.
Review: Meta-analysis of the association between production diversity, diets, and nutrition in smallholder farm households. It’s not always there. But that would have been a high bar.
Agricultural diversification as an important strategy for achieving food security in Africa. Case in point. More diverse households and farming systems are more food secure, but only up to a point, and it depends on various factors. 43% of African cropland will be difficult to diversify.
Using herbaria to study global environmental change. Have been used to monitor the effects of climate change, habitat change, pollution and invasives on plants.
Green Digitization: Online Botanical Collections Data Answering Real‐World Questions. Gotta get the stuff digitized first though.
The ‘PhenoBox’, a flexible, automated, open‐source plant phenotyping solution. Somebody mention digitizing?
Dissecting the null model for biological invasions: A meta-analysis of the propagule pressure effect. The success of aliens is down to their numbers. Wonder if it works for pest and disease organisms too.
Are systematic reviews and meta-analyses still useful research? We are not sure. All righty then. Scrap the above.
Shattering or not shattering: that is the question in domestication of rice (Oryza sativa L.). From one of the authors, Debarati Chakraborty: Loss of shattering through sh4 is not a crucial step for rice domestication. Genetics, cultural anthropology and archaeology suggests that primitive agrarians were dependent on wild or semi-domesticated shattering rice.
Rooting for food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa probably hasn’t the rootable soil depth for monster maize yields.

May 2, 2018

Managing crop breeding data

“It is truly a ‘one-stop-shop’ for the global yam breeding community,” said Ismail Rabbi, a geneticist at IITA and member of the new yam project. “We adopted an ‘open data’ policy and therefore people can access the data from anywhere and help in the improvement of the crop.”

And there are similar resources for cassava, sweet potato and bananas, the common denominator being Lukas Muller at BTI. All these resources are focused very much on the management of material and data within breeding programmes. They have very different, but fairly limited, approaches to the question of linking back whatever the breeder does to accessions in genebanks. For example, it would be good to see DOIs catered for. Open data is all well and good, but open silos are still silos.

May 1, 2018April 30, 2018

Nibbles: Garlic history, Collecting, GMO course, Rice genebank, Mango diversity, Chilli diversity, Virtual plant breeding, Navel orange, LA tree, Cotton sustainability, Saudi agritourism

Trying to promote a “poor person’s crop”? Try the garlic trick, ennobling.
A Reference Manual for Expedition Plant Collectors, courtesy of the The Arnold Arboretum.
Cornell runs a MOOC on GMOs. How about one on genebanks, eh?
Maharashtra could maybe use it.
You can never have too many mangoes.
Or dried chillies.
Next generation plant breeding.
Riverside protects its famous citrus tree.
But not all famous California trees are so lucky.
Making cotton sustainable. Hard row to hoe.
Saudi farm tourism. Even harder.

April 23, 2018April 28, 2018

Brainfood: Seed libraries, Nepali veggie seeds, Agricultural ES, Zn rice, Sub rice core, SoD, D2N, Root crops knowledge, Horse diversity

Civic seeds: new institutions for seed systems and communities—a 2016 survey of California seed libraries. 6456 seed packets borrowed annually, by 4776 people, from >100 seed libraries, with a 6% return rate.
Vegetables production and marketing: practice and perception of vegetable seed producers and fresh growers in Nepal. Producers like hybrids, consumers prefer open pollinated varieties. Oh, and drying is a problem. No word on whether seed libraries might help.
Exploiting ecosystem services in agriculture for increased food security. Services don’t include crop diversity, apparently.
Molecular Diversity Analysis for Zinc Deficiency Tolerance under Aerobic Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Ecosystem. Two major groups.
Developing Mini Core of Rice Germplasm for Submergence Tolerance. Really mini. Maybe too mini?
CIMMYT’s Seeds of Discovery Initiative: Harnessing Biodiversity for Food Security and Sustainable Development. A “visionary investment.”
Temporal change of Distance to Nature index for anthropogenic influence monitoring in a protected area and its buffer zone. I want a Distance to Genebank index.
Indigenous knowledge and household food security: the role of root and tuber crops among indigenous peoples in the Northern Philippines. The youth are losing it.
Decline of genetic diversity in ancient domestic stallions in Europe. It was artificial selection during the Iron Age.