Breeding

September 30, 2009

More from IIED on landraces and climate change

Jeremy took IIED researchers to task a few days ago over their antipathy to GURTs, as articulated in a recent press release. One of the researchers quoted in that release, Krystyna Swiderska, is now the subject of an interview. GURTs don’t come up, but Dr Swiderska is clearly not completely against GMOs in principle:

If GM crops were produced with the people who need them and who will plant them, and they are specifically addressing their needs, then maybe they can be helpful.

Her main concern is to safeguard the rights of farmers.

We need to recognize farmers’ rights to maintain genetic diversity. We also need to protect land rights, cultural and spiritual values, and customary laws. Traditional knowledge is dependent on genetic diversity and vice versa and those two are dependent on farmers having rights to land and plant varieties.

Asked if traditional farmers could feed rising populations in a warming world, she points out that “there are technologies based on traditional seed varieties that can increase yields.” These technologies mainly turn out to be participatory plant breeding. I would have liked to see more discussion of this topic.

I’ll try to follow up on some work on genetic erosion I was not aware of:

Our research on rice in India’s eastern Himalayas, on potatoes in the Peruvian Andes, and on maize in southwest China, found significant reductions of traditional varieties in the last 10 to 20 years. There used to be 30 to 40 varieties of a crop being planted but now there are maybe 5 to 10 varieties.

September 29, 2009September 29, 2009

Nibbles: WFP and Millennium Villages, Agroecotourism squared, Mango, Wild pollinators, CGIAR change process, Grape breeding, Landraces and climate change, Mau Forest, Eels

“…WFP’s partnership with the Millennium Villages Project would deploy the full range of the Programme’s tools and help utilize the Millennium Villages as a platform for best practices.” Good. But let’s just hope the villagers’ own best tool — agrobiodiversity — doesn’t get left behind.
More on the Cotacachi agroecotourism project in Ecuador.
Heritage tourism in the Virgin Islands targets old sugar cane mill.
The “mango villages” of India.
Pollination needs to go wild.
Ok, so the CGIAR is going to re-organize itself into mega-programmes (look at the PDF at the bottom of the page), one of which is on “Crop germplasm conservation, enhancement and use.” Big deal? I wish I knew.
Pssst, wanna discuss grape breeding?
More from IIED on landraces and climate change.
Deforestation, drought and politics in Kenya.
Tracking eel migrations.

September 27, 2009September 26, 2009

Progress in perennial wheat

We’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for perennial cereals, eagerly anticipating the day when the Land Institute’s farmer-breeders harvest ready-made muesli from their perennial polyculture on the prairies. Recent research confirms that perennial wheat is slowly coming closer in reality and simply as a concept for conservative farmers to contemplate.

As a concept, it could gain traction in Australia thanks to a desk-study that looked at the economic potential of perennial cereals there. Savings can be made in fertilisers, herbicides, tillage and sowing costs, but are they enough to offset yield penalties? Lindsay Bell and colleagues plugged a perennial wheat into a farm model called MIDAS (Model of an Integrated Dryland Agricultural System). They made various assumptions about the yield penalty that perennial wheat might labour under, the quality of the wheat, and whether it might offer grazing to livestock.

In areas where wheat is in any case not very profitable, then if the quality remains the same perennial wheat is profitable even if the yield is only 60% to 75%. If quality is lower, suitable only for feed markets, then the yield must be at least 85%. Factor in feed and things become even more interesting. On a mixed farm that raises sheep as well as wheat, a dual-purpose perennial grain that offers forage, especially early in the growing season, can “greatly increase whole-farm profitability” according to the study. Even if grain yield is only 40% of annual wheat, a perennial wheat would be worth including on 12% of the farm area. The study points out that “this demonstrates that there is capacity to trade-off grain yield for forage production from a perennial cereal”. ((Surely not! That means it doesn’t have to be either or?))

Other benefits can be factored in too. In some parts of the US, research is focused on perennial wheat because the permanent cover and particularly the root system would slow soil erosion in sensitive areas. Reports of a recent field visit at the University of Michigan, which recently won a US$1 million grant to develop perennial wheat, stress this aspect of a permanent crop. In an aside that article says that “fields could be used to graze livestock between harvests”.

I wonder whether they’re aware of this research thrust on some of the cattle ranches I’ve visited in Texas? Farmers there sow wheat only to provide forage for cattle and don’t really care whether they get a grain harvest from it or not. A half-decent perennial crop would surely be valuable for them.

There are all sorts other factors that could tip the balance in favour of perennial cereals. One that’s become especially relevant lately is carbon sequestration. Those perennial root systems are doubtless capable of plucking buckets of CO2 out of the atmosphere. It would be nice to think that maybe some of the climate change funds sloshing around might find their way into this kind of research and maybe even pay farmers to grow perennial cereals.

September 25, 2009September 25, 2009

Nibbles: Non-wood forest products, Landraces and climate change, Brewing, IRRI, Agroforestry, Borlaug, Mutant

New NWFP Digest is out. Bamboo, bamboo and more bamboo. You all have subscribed, right?
Your indigenous seeds will set you free. Not if you don’t have a breeding programme and decent seed companies they wont. Or not only.
College students to evaluate hop varieties. What could possibly go wrong?
“The IRRI is not involved in any projects on land acquisition for rice production, nor do we provide advice on land acquisition.”
Agroforestry professor interviewed by Mongabay.
Edwin Price vs Vandana Shiva on Borlaug on Oz radio. Let the games begin.
Cool chimeric apple.

September 25, 2009September 25, 2009

An African agrobiodiversity snowclone

Beware of the “X doesn’t need A, it needs B” snowclone. For example: “Africa doesn’t need a green revolution. It needs agroecology.” Because it invariably turns out that what X really needs is both A and B.