Maybe ours was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but beekeeper Felicia Gilljam has now blogged her thoughts on Colony Collapse Disorder. Being scientifically cautious, I suspect, there’s a disclaimer: “Because I’m a beekeeper, apparently my opinion is considered ‘expert’.” More expert than many another commenter, I reckon. I’ll let you read it over there, but the executive summary is that Felicia is not sure how real the phenomenon is, especially in Europe. And perhaps the virus that has been associated with CCD gets a purchase because something else weakens the hive. She also raises the intriguing possibility that breeding bees to be better harvesters that are docile and don’t swarm may have brought along some other effects — like a weaker immune system — as hitchhikers.
Chestnuts coming back
Chestnuts roasting on open fires again. Bing Crosby unavailable for comment.
Cacao and maize tell similar stories
Playing catch-up, I note from Cacaolab an article in the New York Times, saying that archaeologists reckon that people first used the pulp in cacao pods as the basis for a fermented beverage, only later figuring out that the seeds might be good to eat too. Cacaolab says this makes sense. I’ll take their word for it.
I like the idea of one thing leading to another because it gives weight to my favourite theory on the domestication of maize. All the evidence suggests that the original mutation that turned teosinte into maize happened only once. So how come somebody noticed it? Because people were cultivating teosinte. But why? They weren’t using the seeds, as far as we know. Hugh Iltis advanced the idea that people were growing teosinte as a source of sugar, chewing on the stalks rather like sugarcane. And they were also harvesting corn smut, Ustilago maydis, a fungus that grows on the seeds and that is known locally as huitlacoche (which, by the way, is absolutely delicious). So they had every reason to pay attention to teosinte’s miserable ears of grain, and to notice the changes that created maize.
Speaking of which … geneticists have recreated the rare events that gave rise to wheat, giving us synthetic wheat (incredibly useful for breeding) in the process. They know all about the mutations that make maize. But as far as I know they have not yet made synthetic maize. Why not?
Bringing back a wild relative
Aurochsen. Tarpans. Nazis. Wait, Nazis?
Search for rust-proof wheats proceeds
Scientists at the USDA Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research Unit at Aberdeen, Idaho, have been combing old records in their search for wheat that may be resistant to UG99 and other types of stem rust. Nearly 8500 accessions from all around the world have been tested since 1988. Those tests did not include UG99, of course, which first emerged in 1999, but they are still useful to identify likely candidates. Farmers’ varieties from Chile, Ethiopia, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina are showing promise, and several are being shipped out to east Africa to be trialled in the real world where UG99 runs riot.
The article in the USDA’s magazine is just one of several that discuss cereal breeding. There’s an editorial on the need for global cooperation ((Doh! It’s a global problem.)), an overview of UG99 (which we blogged earlier) and others on breeding soybeans and common beans.