- A chickpea genetic variation map based on the sequencing of 3,366 genomes. Where the good and the bad alleles are. Even The Economist is impressed.
- Crop Wild Relatives Crosses: Multi-Location Assessment in Durum Wheat, Barley, and Lentil. There are lots of good alleles in the wild relatives.
- The arches and spandrels of maize domestication, adaptation, and improvement. Some alleles are good by accident, and that’s ok.
- Malting Quality of ICARDA Elite Winter Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) Germplasm Grown in Moroccan Middle Atlas. Here are some alleles for good beer.
- High molecular weight glutenin gene diversity in Aegilops tauschii demonstrates unique origin of superior wheat quality. And here are some alleles for good gluten. In a wild relative from unexpected place, as it turns out. More in the press release.
- Genetic resources of bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl.] and citron watermelon (Citrullus lanatus var. citroides (L.H. Bailey) Mansf. ex Greb.): implications for genetic improvement, product development and commercialization: a review. Not just good as rootstocks, and lots of alleles to play with.
- Coconut genome assembly enables evolutionary analysis of palms and highlights signaling pathways involved in salt tolerance. Looks like coconut might have lost a lot of good alleles at the end of the Pleistocene glaciations.
- High-quality reference genome sequences of two coconut cultivars provide insights into evolution of monocot chromosomes and differentiation of fiber content and plant height. The same gene controls height in coconuts as in maize and rice.
- Enhancing the searchability, breeding utility, and efficient management of germplasm accessions in the USDA−ARS rice collection. And now you can look for rice germplasm with the good height allele you want.
- History and impact of a bean (Phaseolus spp., Leguminosae, Phaseoleae) collection. Hopefully will be able to do the same for this bean collection soon.
- Integrating Genomic and Phenomic Approaches to Support Plant Genetic Resources Conservation and Use. The above, summarized.
- Gene Bank Collection Strategies Based Upon Geographic and Environmental Indicators for Beef Breeds in the United States of America. The above, plus environmental data, for cattle.
- History of Global Germplasm Conservation System. The above, writ large.
Nibbles: Wild wheat, Saving coffee, Wild rice, 3 Sisters video, Blenheim honeybees, NDCs
- The ancient, wild, Georgian roots of bread wheat gluten.
- Wild relatives could help us save coffee. But we knew that. Right?
- Photosynthesis in wild rices responds more quickly to light changes than in the crop, stomata not so much. Sometimes domestication giveth, sometimes it taketh away.
- It gave us the Three Sisters for sure. With video goodness.
- Honeybees have wild relatives too. Well, maybe.
- But do the NDCs recognise any of the above?
Nibbles: Mesopotamian ag & gardens, Old dogs, Ethiopian church groves, High Desert Seed, Australian Rubus, Fuggle hop, New sweet potato, Naming organisms
- Jeremy’s newsletter deals with Sumerian grains, among other things.
- Which may have been grown in the gardens of Uruk.
- I suppose the Sumerians must have had weird dogs frolicking around their gardens?
- Maybe they even thought of their gardens as sacred places. You know, like in Ethiopia.
- Seeds for a desert half a world away from Sumeria.
- Meanwhile, half a world away in the other direction, a thornless raspberry takes a bow.
- The Sumerians had beer, right? Not with this hop though. Or any hops, actually.
- Pretty sure they didn’t have sweet potatoes either. Of any colour.
- They had names for whatever they grew of course. And such vernacular names can be a pain in the ass, but also kinda fun.
Nibbles: Green FAO, Veggie breeding, TABLE debate, Better seeds
- There’s an FAO Global Conference on Green Development of Seed Industries this Thursday and Friday. Includes sessions on genebanks.
- I hope it will cover the breeding of weird — and not-so-weird — vegetables as well as this Food Programme episode did.
- And debate the issues as effectively as was done by Pat Mooney and Charles Godfray at this TABLE event.
- Meanwhile, in Malawi and the Philippines…
- All we are saying…
Brainfood: RICA, AEGIS, CWR, Agrosavia, DSI, CRISPR, Tradition, SNS, Stability, Birds, Sparing, Genetic erosion
- RICA: A rice crop calendar for Asia based on MODIS multi year data. RiceAtlas validated. Still trying to figure out how to mash it up with genebank accession locality data though. Any GIS geniuses out there to help me?
- AEGIS, the Virtual European Genebank: Why It Is Such a Good Idea, Why It Is Not Working and How It Could Be Improved. Certify genebanks, that’s how.
- Reap the crop wild relatives for breeding future crops. Needs good data and certified genebanks. Plus gene editing.
- Opportunities and Challenges to Improve a Public Research Program in Plant Breeding and Enhance Underutilized Plant Genetic Resources in the Tropics. Needs better social networking. Plus better data and certified genebanks, presumably.
- From seed to sequence: Dematerialization and the battle to (re)define genetic resources. Ah yes, data.
- Current Advancements and Limitations of Gene Editing in Orphan Crops. Ah yes, gene editing.
- Revitalizing Traditional Agricultural Practices: Conscious Efforts to Create a More Satisfying Culture. Meanwhile, in Sweden…
- Sacred natural sites and biodiversity conservation: a systematic review. Of course sacred sites are good for biodiversity. But it’s always good to have the data.
- Global relationships between crop diversity and nutritional stability. Sacred sites are not enough, alas.
- Preserving local biodiversity through crop diversification. Crop diversity is even good for birds…
- Concentrating vs. spreading our footprint: how to meet humanity’s needs at least cost to nature. …but, overall intensification of agriculture coupled with sparing land for conservation (maybe even in sacred sites) is the best approach for wildlife. And humanity, for that matter. So, back to needing better data from certified genebanks, so we can get that intensification done, right?
- Quantifying the scale of genetic diversity extinction in the Anthropocene. Right!