Category: Breeding

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US$14 million for genome studies

plant1_f.jpgThe National Science Foundation in the US has announced grants totaling US$14 million for genome studies of “economically important plants”. Among the many projects will be one on red rice (seen left, photo courtesy of Washington University St Louis), a weedy variant that contaminates rice fields in the US. It reduces yields by up to 80% and researchers hope to discover whether it originated from cultivated rice or was imported, possibly accidentally, as a weed from Asia. A similar study will focus on weedy versions of radish. This could lead to a deeper understanding of just what makes some populations weedy and invasiveness, and hence to better control. One the other hand, maybe they should just develop a local market for red rice.

Other studies will look at genetic variation within cultivars of maize and pine trees and at the evolution of Brassicas, a highly diverse group. One can only hope that the information gathered will also help farmers and scientists to produce better adapted varieties for their own conditions, even if those conditions are far removed from the intensive agricultural fields of the US.

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Where the buffalo roam

There are about 300,000 American bison left. How many of them are genetically pure? I don’t know about you, but I would have guessed many more than the 10,000 quoted in this article. The vast majority have some cattle genes, it turns out, due to past hybridization efforts by ranchers. The largest “un-contaminated” herd is in the Yellowstone National Park. Scientists are doing DNA studies across the range of the species to develop a management strategy. There are plans to reconstitute large tracts of the prairies, and pure bison are needed to roam them. But my question is: how many cattle herds have buffalo genes?

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Açaí plantations?

The juice and pulp of the fruits of the Amazonian palm Euterpe oleracea (açaí­) have long been consumed locally but are increasingly used in juices and nutraceutical beverages aimed at the North American market. They are harvested from the wild, but some people are now thinking plantations too. But speaking of wild harvesting of fruits/nuts, this article suggests that this can be sustainable only where it is not accompanied by hunting of key seed dispersers.

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Micropropagating sweet potatoes

According to the Carolina, USA farmer featured in this article, “micropropagation is the name of the game in sweet potatoes.” “The bottom line is a very uniform crop,” he adds. That’s not necessarily everywhere a good thing, of course, but clean planting material is always important.

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Fermenting the biofuel revolution

Part 2 of my musings on bioenergy is now available. This ramble looks at a novel form of breeding yeast, persuading it to make many more errors as it copies its DNA, and thus throw up lots of mutants for engineers to select among. The result is a yeast of unparalleled potency that would have been all but impossible to produce by tinkering with one gene at a time. And that leads into a consideration of some of the policy aspects of biofuels, such as what poor people will eat when the bioenergy industry is paying more than double today’s price for food in order to turn that food into fuel.