Category: Breeding

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Critically endangered cassava wild relative delays rotting

Here’s something else I learned at this workshop I’m attending on the state of plant genetic resources conservation and use in Latin America:

Dramatically delayed PPD [postharvest physiological deterioration] was found in Manihot walkerae, a wild relative of cassava found in Mexico and USA (state of Texas) (Fregene and Mba 2004). An accession of M. walkerae (MWal 001) was crossed extensively to elite cassava varieties. A single successful genotype was found with delayed PPD. The storage roots of the hybrid remained intact a month after harvest. Backcrosses of this hybrid to elite progenitors of the CIAT cassava gene pools and selfed (S1) populations were made for genetic mapping of the delayed PPD traits.

This came up during a discussion of the importance of collecting and conserving crop wild relatives. I had no idea the Manihot genus went as far north as Texas. Walker’s manioc turns out to be extremely endangered:

Until recently, it was believed that this species was represented in the U. S. by a single plant in the wild, discovered in Hidalgo County in 1990. In 1995, Walker’s manioc was located in three different areas on the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge in Starr and Hidalgo Counties.

It is known from only a couple of populations in Mexico. I don’t give much for its chances in the wild. But there is material in the San Antonio Botanical Garden. And some of its genes are now in some cultivated varieties.

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Making breeding illegal

“When the disease comes in here, it’s going to wipe you out and you’ll have nothing left.”

That’s Ching Yuan Hu, associate dean for the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, talking about legislation that would outlaw genetic modification of taro in Hawaii. Not sure which disease he’s talking about. Maybe our Pacific readers will tell us. Or Danny. Taro Leaf Blight is already in Hawaii, but others aren’t, of course.

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AGRA Watch is on the lookout

Concerned citizens and activists have begun a new CAGJ program called AGRA Watch whose objectives are to monitor and question the Gates Foundation’s participation in the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Upon researching this initiative and its historical precedents, AGRA Watch finds the current approach politically, environmentally, socially, and ethically problematic (to read more, see “Four Categories of Problems” in blog posts). We support sustainable, socially responsible, and indigenous alternatives in Africa, and connect these movements to those occurring in our local communities.

But who’s watching the watchers? Well, I guess we are. The AGRA Watch blog has gone into my feed reader.

LATER: Ooops, sorry. Turns out that feed is for the whole CAGJ website, not just the AGRA Watch blog. But we’ll be keeping an eye on the blog anyway.

LATER STILL: As you were, I’m informed all blog posts are included in the central RSS feed.

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Breeding news galore

The latest Plant Breeding News is out. There’s a huge number of interesting tidbits in it this month, including announcements for a number of major international conferences. But I’ll just highlight a web site that I think I may have linked to before but certainly bears mentioning again: PlantStress:

…the purpose of this web site is to serve as a brokerage of information, a meeting place, a consultation facility and a source for professional update on the most important issues of plant environmental (abiotic) stress. While the site is dynamic and constantly updated it also offers basic educational materials to newcomers into this area who wish to use the site for learning. The most important goal of this web site is to promote interaction among those interested in solving the problem of plants under stress in agriculture, be it scientists, extension specialists, business people, administrators, policy makers or farmers.

It includes a useful page of news, announcements and events, although unfortunately it does not have an RSS feed.

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Nibbles: Book, Moral and physical revulsion, DNA bank, Cacao genome, Cassava, Agroforestry, Dung products, Pork brain