Jeremy had a post recently on how to keep track of emerging pests and diseases. Certainly services like ProMED-mail and HealthMap are incredibly valuable. But perhaps even better would be a way to predict what a disease might do before it actually does it, for example as a result of climate change. That’s what some Czech researchers have done for the European corn borer, a pest of maize. ((There’s also an assessment of the risk of spread to new areas in a recent study of the root-parasite Orobanche crenata, but that paper did not specifically consider climate change in any detail.)) They modelled its life cycle on the basis of daily weather data, both current, to see if the model fit reality, and possible future, to predict what the pest might do under different climate change scenarios. The result was that the corn borer will cover the entire agricultural area of the country by 2040-2075, by which time “maize is expected to partly replace traditional cereals (e.g. winter wheat, rye, etc.).” That’s a frightening prospect. Better start planning – and breeding – for it now. ((A recent paper on wheat spot blotch in the East Gangetic Plains of India, Bangladesh and Nepal describes how breeding has made good resistant varieties available, but adds that climate change is tilting the playing field in favour of the disease, which means that breeders can’t afford to rest on their laurels.))
Basmati rice on the rise
India’s Financial Express has a piece describing some of the recent history of Basmati rice. I guess it’s a fairly familiar story, but a couple of things stood out for me as I read it. One was that India and Pakistan “are planning to jointly claim rights for geographical indications (GIs) for this aromatic long grain rice.” Another was that the “European Union … is in favour of duty derogation for import of Basmati having pure parental lines.” So not landraces, just newly bred Basmati varieties? Finally, I found the link between Basmati and organic agriculture intriguing.
It’s a wise grape that knows its own father
In the annals of plant breeding there are many stories that have achieved the status of Truth. Like the discovery of the original pink grapefruit, the parent tree marked forever with a P carved in its trunk, or the Red Delicious apple found in a ditch somewhere. Not quite so well known is the tale of Cardinal grapes. It is a delicious table grape that, so the story goes, was bred in 1939 at the Horticultural Field Station in Fresno, California, by E. Snyder and F. Harmon, by crossing Flame Tokay and Ribier.
Alas, it ain’t so.
Flame Tokay is normally considered a synonym — just another name — for Ahmer Bou Amer, an Algerian table grape. In the course of examining the DNA of a bunch of Mediterranean grape varieties, A. Akkak, P. Bocacci and R. Rotta ((Cardinal grape parentage: a case of a breeding mistake. Genome 50(3): 325-328 (2007) doi:10.1139/G06-145)) discovered that Flame Tokay could not possibly have been a parent of Cardinal, though they cannot show who is either. I don’t imagine E. Snyder or F. Harmon is still around to tell us what really happened. The researchers also prove that Flame Tokay is not merely a synonym of Ahmer Bou Amer but a mutant in at least one gene.
And in other grape news, two scientists in Switzerland are warning that the American Vitis rootstocks that saved the European wine industry from Phylloxera are threatening the survival of native wild European grapevines. ((Arrigo N, Arnold C (2007) Naturalised Vitis Rootstocks in Europe and Consequences to Native Wild Grapevine. PLoS ONE 2(6): e521. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000521)) Nils Arrigo and Claire Arnold say that:
The regrouping of naturalised rootstocks in interconnected populations tends to create active hybrid swarms of rootstocks. The rootstocks show characters of invasive plants. The spread of naturalised rootstocks in the environment, the acceleration of the decline of the European wild grapevine, and the propagation of genes of viticultural interest in natural populations are potential consequences that should be kept in mind when undertaking appropriate management measures.
In other words, watch out.
The American rootstocks have already displaced wild grapes from the flood plains of the Rhone, and there may be worse in store.
Pea project, possibly
There’s another attempt to involve schoolchildren in agricultural biodiversity at a site called GeBaPro — Gene Bank Projects. Like one we linked to a while ago, this is also about peas and is also supported by Het Hof van Eden (whose site seems to be undergoing a rebirth). Maybe they are two aspects of but a single project?
The idea is terrific. Get children interested in diversity using a simple subject, of great historical interest, and with all sorts of ramifications that good teachers could use to range widely across almost any curriculum. Link classrooms in Europe with counterparts in Thailand and Bolivia, for example. But — and I hate to be a worry-wart — there just doesn’t seem to be any follow-up. So what’s up? Lack of support? Lack of schools? Lack of something, that’s for sure. If I can help in any way, I’d be happy to, but it is impossible to know what to do for the best.
I suppose they could also try this: “The door is now open for everyone to participate in conservation with this simple activity called e-Conservation. You are invited to participate and to innovate on the content into your area of concern.”
Un-spinning “natural” skimmed milk
Muck and Mystery unspins “natural” skimmed milk.