- Chicory averts evil. Gotta get me some.
- Genebank watermelon material reveals sources of resistance to WVD caused by SqVYV. What?
- Israelis, Palestinians and Germans collaborate on DNA fingerprinting and quality evaluation of olive trees. Wait, what? Scroll down.
- Genetic structure of Native American food plant not really affected by Native Americans. This is the bulb that kept Lewis & Clark alive, apparently.
- Tracing Paper compares hog distribution in 1922 and now, finds little difference.
Nibbles: Svalbard, Consumers, Seed law, Fragrant rice, Five Farms on radio, Invasive plant used, Genetic diversity and latitude, Coffee and tea in history, Coconut disease
- “Sustainable food production may not begin in this cold Arctic environment, but it does begin by conserving crop diversity.” Words of wisdom from the frozen lips of Ban Ki Moon.
- Organic vs local. A survey.
- Civil Society opposes seed laws in Chile.
- Jeremy gets stuck into a bowl of basmati and Five Farms.
- “Pest to pesto.”
- Tropical fruit flies have less genetic diversity than temperate fruit flies, may have trouble adapting to climate change.
- “It is difficult to imagine what the first taste of sugar or coffee must have been like to those accustomed to weak beer and bread.”
- Lethal yellowing spreads in Ghana?
Chinese interdependence
A paper just out in Agricultural Science in China reminded me that I wanted to say something about one of the great meta-narratives of plant genetic resources: interdependence — the old no-country-is-self-sufficient-in-PGR mantra. Which, unlike some other meta-narratives, is generally recognized as being true — witness the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). And that despite the fact that measuring interdependence is not by any means easy, and has not often been done.
The paper which caught my eye is not really primarily about interdependence. ((ZHAO, Y., Ofori, A., & LU, C. (2009). Genetic diversity of European and Chinese oilseed Brassica rapa cultivars from different breeding periods. Agricultural Sciences in China 8(8):931-938. DOI: 10.1016/S1671-2927(08)60297-7.)) It just shows that cultivars of winter oilseed rape (canola) from China are very distinct from European ones, on the basis of molecular markers. Which presumably means that yield gains could be had from cross-breeding between the two groups. Which does say something about interdependence, but not very forcefully.
However, that paper reminded me about two others that a colleague had recently sent me, along with the thought that they should be enough, in a perfect world, for China to ratify the ITPGRFA.
The first is about soybean. ((Qin, J., Chen, W., Guan, R., Jiang, C., Li, Y., Fu, Y., Liu, Z., Zhang, M., Chang, R., & Qiu, L. (2006). Genetic contribution of foreign germplasm to elite Chinese soybean (Glycine max) cultivars revealed by SSR markers. Chinese Science Bulletin, 51(9):1078-1084. DOI: 10.1007/s11434-006-1078-4)) It shows, using molecular markers again, that a couple of elite Chinese cultivars benefited greatly, in terms of both specific traits but also their difference from previous Chinese cultivars (that is, the genetic base of the crop as a whole was broadened) from the fact that US and Japanese germplasm was involved in their development, rather than just Chinese stuff.
The second paper makes the interdependence point even more strongly by quantifying the contribution of foreign maize germplasm to production in China, rather than just genetic diversity. ((LI, H., HU, R., & ZHANG, S. (2006). The Impact of US and CGIAR Germplasm on Maize Production in China. Agricultural Sciences in China, 5(8):563-571. DOI: 10.1016/S1671-2927(06)60093-X.)) It turns out that a 1% contribution by US material (based on the coefficient of parentage) translates to an additional 0.01 t/ha (0.2%), and a 1% contribution by CIMMYT germplasm to an additional 0.025 t/ha.
The conclusion: “The extensive utilization of US and CG germplasm improved maize yield potential in China… The government should provide funds to support research on germplasm introduction…” And, we could add, it should ratify the ITPGRFA. No country is self-sufficient in PGRFA. Not even the largest.
Many routes to stayfresh cassava
Luigi wondered whether there was a connection between my recent report of a cassava that did not show post-harvest physiological degradation (PPD, or rotting for the rest of us) and his own post on the same subject in March of this year. So we asked the CIAT blogger.
So what’s the story? Did the high carotene trait come from M. walkerae? Or some other place? It would be great if you could tie these loose ends up for us.
And he did, by asking the CIAT researcher.
There is a connection as Luigi suggests. In the article we have just submitted there are four different sources of tolerance to PPD:
1) High carotenes
2) Induced mutations
3) Tolerance from a wild relative (Manihot walkerae)
4) Waxy starch genotypes.
The tolerance from high carotene clones is not coming from M. walkerae. It is an entirely different source and an entirely new chemical basis for the tolerance as well. As it turns out the tolerance from M. walkerae (which is real and is there) is not as good as the one we have seen in yellow rooted cassava.
Thanks to Neil, and to Hernán, and to Luigi’s elephantine memory. We’ll be on the lookout for that paper.
What’s yellow, nutritious and doesn’t rot?
If you answered PPD-free carotene-rich cassava roots, then you obviously got to the CIAT blog before we did. There’s a great story about the kind of serendipitous result that makes scientific research so exciting. CIAT has been developing a yellow cassava, which they call an “egg-yolk” variety, in the hope that the extra carotenes would help to rectify the vitamin A deficiencies that plague so many poor people. Roots were sent off for analysis (the results are very promising) but some of those roots were forgotten in a store-room for two months.
They should have been “totally spoiled and rotten,” because cassava roots are prone to something called post-harvest physiological degradation (PPD) that destroys them within a couple of days of harvest. It seems that the anti-oxidant activity of the carotenes — which had faded away in the stored specimens — had somehow protected them from PPD.
This is a huge breakthough for cassava breeders, growers and processors. Read more at CIAT.