The newsletter produced by the Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre (ABGC), a joint venture of Wageningen UR Livestock Research and Wageningen University, is unfortunately not available as an RSS feed, but I think it may well be worth subscribing to via email. The latest edition, for example, gives an update on the Dutch Heritage Sheep project, which points out that “[s]pecific equipment for semen collection was prepared in order to get the ram to mount a ewe in heat” and includes a helpful photograph.
Nibbles: Sunflower breeding, ITPGRFA, Grape genetics, ABA
- Jim Gerdes shows how the sunflower blossom is emasculated. Ouch.
- Mary Taylor interviewed on Radio Australia about the ITPGRFA and all that.
- The genetics of malvin production in grapes. No, wait, don’t go, it’s actually kind of interesting.
- Prof. Bryant summarizes Annals of Botany papers on lotus pollination, salt/drought tolerance in Atriplex and pre-harvest sprouting in sorghum. ABA seems to be involved in everything.
Finding the perfect fry
The hunt is on to find a worthy replacement for Russet Burbank as McDonald’s spud of choice for its fries, at least in the US. Actually, a couple more varieties have received Ronald’s seal of approval, but the last time a variety was added to his shopping list was in 1999. Time for some diversification, wouldn’t you say?
McDonald’s has huge clout. Russet Burbank has a 40% acreage share in the top potato states, almost 60% in Idaho. But it has drawbacks, and the industry is “always looking for the silver bullet to replace [it].” And “taste, texture and golden-brown appearance aren’t everything” now, as they were in the good old days. Now you have to worry about the water use efficiency of varieties, and their resistance to diseases, so that they don’t get doused with pesticides so much. Industry reps recently met to discuss the latest prospects. And they chose the ideal place to do so: Sturgeon Bay, Wis., home of the U.S. Potato Gene Bank. The hot money is on the Bannock Russet.
Oca pods pop unseen
This won’t do. I’m not spending all those hours exercising my droit de seigneur without the satisfaction of raising the offspring as my own.
Rhizowen continues his exciting attempts to breed oca.
Unintended consequences of cacao breeding
I’ll be in Ecuador later this week, but alas nowhere near “the upriver area of the Guayas River Basin in the lowlands of southwestern Ecuador”. If I were, you know that I would be investigating arriba chocolate and beans with all the assets at my disposal. Instead I’m relying on a post at a very interesting artisanal chocolate blog, Destination Ecuador. ((Incidentally, one of the most visually challenging blogs I’ve seen in a long time; to see the text of links I have to ensure that the mouse is hovering inside the post, which turns the background grey, which makes the yellow text of the links almost visible, if I squint. Whatever their designer is using, I’ll have some.))
The problem seems to be that the Nacional bean — source of arriba chocolate — is susceptible to witches broom, and is being replaced by a variety called CCN-51, and “while a very good quality chocolate can be made from CCN-51, it requires different fermentation and post-harvest treatment from Nacional beans”. It also tastes different. Currently, however, there’s absolutely no incentive for growers or buyers to separate CCN-51 from Nacional. Arriba carries a price premium as chocolate, but the beans don’t, and as a result one could pay the premium for non-arriba chocolate. In other words, a rip-off.
The post is very informative about the forces that act on cacao biodiversity and marketing — and will make me look more carefully at any chocolate I do chance upon.