Category: Breeding

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India clones the buffalo, solves the milk problem

There was a wonderfully informative article on buffalo cloning in Northern Voices Online — tag line: “Connecting Indians Globally” — a few days back. Here’s a few of the interesting tidbits that it serves up (though I haven’t yet verified the information, I should add). A buffalo has been cloned in India for the second time, this one by the name of Garima. The first survived only a few days. India is the world’s largest milk producer (15% of total global production); 55% of that is contributed by buffalo. India’s first cross-bred cow, named Jill, was produced in 1909 at the Imperial Institute of Animal Husbandry Bangalore, by crossing an Ayrshire with the local Haryana breed. And so on.

Now, in such a well-informed and data-laden article, it is surprising not to hear the other side of the story as well. Why not say something about the importance of conserving, continuing to use, and improving local breeds, while all this cross-breeding and cloning is going on? Why not mention the work of the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources? After all, it will be a long time before cloned elite buffaloes are contributing to that 55%.

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Strawberry fields video

Our friend Michael Hermann sent a link to a German TV item about strawberries. ((Unfortunately, I can’t see a way to embed the video here directly. , and I cannot be sure that the link will survive, in that form. If you click, and reach a video about something else entirely, please let me know and I’ll see if I can fix it. Luckily Luigi was able to find a permalink, which should now work properly.)) It packs an enormous amount of information into just 3 1/2 minutes, from a strawberry genebank and breeders to a master patissier who uses them to adorn a French tart.

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Nibbles: Grains, Cuba, Wine, Raspberries, Film, Bio-char, European market regulations

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Rice breeding gets a boost … and needs it

The Hindu reports that the Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute (TRRI) is now involved in the Cereal System Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), a project funded by USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and launched in January. One of the interesting, but arcane, aspects of The Hindu’s coverage is the use of the phrase “mega collaborative project” to describe CSISA. That phrase may resonate with people involved in the CGIAR’s latest effort to reinvent itself. The other is that “proven technologies will be delivered to the farmers and the pipeline technologies will be evaluated in Adaptive Research Trials for fine tuning and delivery”.

Will those proven technologies include the use of biodiversity other than as a source of interesting traits for the pipeline technologists?

We said originally that CSISA “deserves to be a success” but we’re still wondering how innovative the approach will be.

Rice is clearly going to need all the help it can get to continue to feed people in the next few decades. SciDev.net reports on a recent publication from scientists in Bangladesh predicting a 20% drop in yields to 2050 and a 50% drop to 2075. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the figures, but I can say that the world needs to wake up to the fact that changes are coming, that they are going to require flexibility and adaptability, and that it is not too late to start preparing.