Breeding

April 29, 2013April 30, 2013

Open data, open germplasm

In opening remarks at #openagdata Vilsack mentions GRIN-Global, terms NPGS and other genebanks “keystone to international sustainable ag.”

— AgroBioDiverse (@AgroBioDiverse) April 29, 2013

And that’s not all…

Bill Gates tells #openagdata now is time for big data to solve big problems. Genomic data powers accelerated breeding. Concrete steps key.

— Trevor Nicholls (@trevornlifesci) April 29, 2013

We wait to see what those concrete steps might be. But I hope Mr Gates and Sec. Vilsack talked to each other. Or at least listened to each other’s talks. And joined up the dots.

April 29, 2013April 29, 2013

Brainfood: Gender and agrobiodiversity, Insect diversity, Contests and agrobiodiversity, Chinese rice breeding, Wheat origins, Historic abundance, History and conservation

Governance of seed and food security through participatory plant breeding: Empirical evidence and gender analysis from Syria. Women are important.
Comparison of pollinators and natural enemies: a meta-analysis of landscape and local effects on abundance and richness in crops. Both can be managed at the same time.
Biodiversity and recipe contests: Innovative socioecological approaches to capture ecological knowledge and conserve biodiversity in Arunachal Pradesh. Women are important.
Rice breeding in the post-genomics era: from concept to practice. China is where it’s at.
SNPing Aegilops tauschii genetic diversity and the birthplace of bread wheat. Caspian Iran is where it’s at.
Inferring recent historic abundance from current genetic diversity. It might actually be possible to infer historic abundance from the genetics of contemporary samples only, which seems kinda awesome.
Europe’s other debt crisis caused by the long legacy of future extinctions. The current conservation status of vascular plants in Europe reflects the situation in 1900. Can’t help thinking this should be mashed up with the one above.
Low genetic diversity and significant structuring in the endangered Mentha cervina populations and its implications for conservation. Low only at population level, so must conserve multiple populations. Which one would probably have done anyway, but now at least we know which.

April 29, 2013

Nibbles: Alcohol, Cannabis, Pollination tool, EU seed law, Fruit cloning

I need a drink.
Or maybe some Viking ganja.
I know I don’t need a VegiBee. But maybe you do.
I guess we all need to write to the EU about the new seed law.
Nobody needs another discussion of whether cloning is good or bad.

April 26, 2013April 26, 2013

Nibbles: Fertilizer taxes, Sustainable brewing, Naked oats, New potatoes, White veggies, EU seed law, CGIAR policy, Grassland connectivity, Llama meat, Seed eating, Agroecology

Intriguing: how about a sliding scale for fertilizer taxes?
Dubious: sustainable brewing in Bogota.
Surprising: naked oat seeds in Canada.
Challenging: new coloured potato varieties are nutritious and pest-resistant.
Illuminating: white veggies are nutritious too.
Important: EU seed vote coming up.
Belated: CGIAR goes open access.
Intoxicating: Japanese drink fermented hydrangea leaves.
Obvious: Cars move grassland seeds.
Freaky: interspecific grass hybrid for flood prevention.
Tasty: Fine carnivorous dining in Bolivia.
Metaphysical: granivory is murder.
Political: UK government supports agroecology.

April 25, 2013April 25, 2013

Pacific taro debuts in West Africa

Readers with a long memory and a thing for root crops may remember our various posts over the past couple of years about an outbreak of Taro Leaf Blight in West Africa, and the promise that resistant varieties from the Pacific may hold for combating the epidemic. Well, our friends at the International Network of Edible Aroids are doing something about it. They’ve just published photos of TLB-resistant varieties from the genebank of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in Fiji being evaluated in Cameroon. Fingers crossed. And I’m sure collections of the local varieties are being made. Aren’t they?

Taro varieties from SPC growing in Cameroon (Photo by Leke Walter Nkeabeng, Molecular Plant Virus Epidemiologist, National Scientific Coordinator of Annual Crops, Yaounde, Cameroon, reproduced by courtesy of the International Network of Edible Aroids) — Taro varieties from SPC growing in Cameroon

(Photo by Leke Walter Nkeabeng, Molecular Plant Virus Epidemiologist,
National Scientific Coordinator of Annual Crops, Yaounde, Cameroon,
reproduced by courtesy of the International Network of Edible Aroids)