- Participate!
- In plant breeding, that is.
- And seed systems too, natch.
- And you too could come up with the world’s hottest pepper.
- Or help save a heritage breed.
- Or sustainably harvest Himalayan nettle.
- But careful not to get high on this chocolate hack.
- Though binging on avocado is perfectly acceptable.
- And for goodness’ sake, watch out for those Russians.
Brainfood: CWR use, Mainstreaming, Duplicates, Phaseolus model, Cherimoya diversity, Legume mixtures, ICRISAT pearl millet, Taste breeding, Rhubarb rhubarb, Plasticity, Seed dispersal
- The Use of Crop Wild Relatives in Maize and Sunflower Breeding. In maize, unlike sunflower, it just hasn’t been worth it. Yet.
- Securing sustainable and nutritious food systems through mainstreaming agricultural biodiversity: an interdisciplinary study. What works in Brazil won’t necessarily fly in India.
- Duplication assessments in Brassica vegetable accessions. Half of 13 accession pairs/triplets with identical names from VIR and NordGen turned out to be morphologically identical.
- Beans (Phaseolus ssp.) as a Model for Understanding Crop Evolution. 7 independent domestication “events” spread across 5 species and 2 continents makes for some interesting natural experiments.
- A Mesoamerican origin of cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.). Implications for the conservation of plant genetic resources. Compare and contrast with above.
- Highly productive forage legume stands show no positive biodiversity effect on yield and N2-fixation. Sometimes diversity doesn’t add much.
- Genetic Resources of Pearl Millet: Status and Utilization. 22,888 accessions from 51 countries. Indian landraces: earliness, high tillering, high harvest index and local adaptation; African: bigger panicles, large seed size, and disease resistance.
- Use of natural diversity and biotechnology to increase the quality and nutritional content of tomato and grape. Both are needed.
- Rhubarb (Rheum species): the role of Edinburgh in its cultivation and development. From China, via Russia, with love.
- Will phenotypic plasticity affecting flowering phenology keep pace with climate change? If the change is smaller than about 13 days.
- Seed dispersers help plants to escape global warming. Because they move seed >35 m per decade uphill.
Nibbles: Wheat-barley hybrid, Father of Wheat Revolution, Medieval bread, Tomato history, SOWP2, Domestication, Red Data, Taro benefits, Hummus!, Textile book, Healthy rice, Avocado Wars
- Tritodendrum hits the market.
- DS Athwal would have approved. RIP.
- Medieval bakers too, I bet.
- Want some cherry tomatoes on your bread? No? Try these then.
- Lots of crop wild relatives among newly discovered plants. See (some of) them on the new State of the World’s Plants report from Kew. And no, Kew, none of them are “miserable.”
- Early farmers unintentionally produced vegetables with larger seeds simply by cultivating them. And cereals too.
- Head of IUCN Red Data List Unit in impassioned plea for IUCN Red Data List process.
- What is taro good for? I’m glad you asked.
- I missed International Hummus Day? How could this happen?
- Textilia Linnaeana! What do you mean I’ve just had my birthday?
- Lowering the glycemic index of rice for the Chinese market.
- Fighting for avocados. Literally.
Brainfood: Canola model, Saline dates, High rice, Perennial wheat, European cowpea, Mesoamerican oil palm, Seed viability, Citrus identity, Poor cassava, Horse domestication, Wild tomatoes, Tea genome, Veggie breeding, Classical brassicas
- Development of a Statistical Crop Model to Explain the Relationship between Seed Yield and Phenotypic Diversity within the Brassica napus Genepool. Look for primary raceme area.
- Screening of Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) Cultivars for Salinity Tolerance. In Oman, Manoma and Umsila are particularly tolerant.
- Genetic structure and isolation by altitude in rice landraces of Yunnan, China revealed by nucleotide and microsatellite marker polymorphisms. Geneflow is horizontal, adaptation vertical.
- Breeding Perennial Grain Crops Based on Wheat. By adding a wild genome.
- European cowpea landraces for a more sustainable agriculture system and novel foods. 24 of them, no less. But you have to start somewhere, I suppose.
- Genetic diversity of Elaeis oleifera (HBK) Cortes populations using cross species SSRs: implication’s for germplasm utilization and conservation. From 532 palms in 19 populations to 34 individuals.
- Large-Scale Screening of Intact Tomato Seeds for Viability Using Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS). Good-bye germination tests?
- Genetic identification of ‘Limau Kacang’ (Citrus sp.), a local mandarin cultivated in West Sumatra by sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP). It’s a ponkan.
- Cassava haplotype map highlights fixation of deleterious mutations during clonal propagation. Cassava is decaying genetically, but breeders are helping.
- Ancient genomic changes associated with domestication of the horse. The ancient DNA of immediate post-domestication horses suggests that the stallion bottleneck happened later.
- Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Two Tomato Species from the Galapagos Islands. They mirror island formation.
- The Tea Tree Genome Provides Insights into Tea Flavor and Independent Evolution of Caffeine Biosynthesis. It evolved caffeine independently of coffee but not cacao. And flavour is down to a whole genome duplication.
- The contribution of international vegetable breeding to private seed companies in India. It can still make one, but for traits rather than varieties.
- Domestication, diversity and use of Brassica oleracea L., based on ancient Greek and Latin texts. Their use as a hangover cure has a long and august pedigree. No word on their raceme area.
EucarpiaGR2017: better late than never
Oh gosh, I forgot to give the obligatory shout-out to the EUCARPIA meeting, this year on “Mobilizing the green gold of plant genetic resources.” Silly me. Follow what’s left on #eucarpiaGR2017, there’s some really interesting stuff on.
The Doyen of seed system research Mauricio Bellon presented new data and analyses from sites around the world. #eucarpiaGR2017 pic.twitter.com/4bydfiY43c
— Ola Westengen (@OlaWestengen) May 11, 2017
LATER: Oh, and compare and contrast with this:
