- Seed in genebanks have fungi, and that could be a good thing.
- Seed sector mentions genebanks, and that’s a good thing.
- Seed libraries are great.
- You can take virtual tours of a couple of CGIAR genebanks, which can’t be bad.
Nibbles: PGRFA book, PGRFA use, PGRFA database
- New book on conserving crop diversity.
- New data on genetic gains in banana breeding.
- New European database for organic seeds. And more on organic ag in Europe.
Brainfood: DSI, SMTA, Geno-Phenotyping, Adoption ceiling, Vegetable seeds, Neutral diversity, Trait variation, Feed interventions, Polyploidy, Varietal selection, Sugarcane genomes, African supply chains, Farmers Rights, Agroforestry
- Bringing access and benefit sharing into the digital age. One thing needed: a Multi‐stakeholder Committee on the Governance of Digital Sequence Information. Well that was easy.
- A contract‐law analyses of the SMTA of the Plant Treaty: Can it work as a binding contract? Three things: the SMTA needs to be valid, binding and enforceable. Which it isn’t now, apparently.
- Recent Large-Scale Genotyping and Phenotyping of Plant Genetic Resources of Vegetatively Propagated Crops. Five things: standardized SSR loci, GBS-derived SNPs, SNP arrays, high-throughput phenotyping system, GWAS.
- “Breaking through the 40% adoption ceiling: Mind the seed system gaps.” A perspective on seed systems research for development in One CGIAR. Four things: capture the demand characteristics of farmers, identify effective seed delivery pathways, ensure seed health and stopping the spread of disease, effective policies and regulation. I guess this is where the Toolkit comes in.
- Africa’s evolving vegetable seed sector: status, policy options and lessons from Asia. Four things: technical capacity, regulations, extension, marketing. Well, yeah.
- The inflated significance of neutral genetic diversity in conservation genetics. Three things: functional genetic diversity, demographic history, and ecological relationships.
- Intraspecific trait variation in plants: a renewed focus on its role in ecological processes. Three things: report individual replicates and population means, investigate mechanisms that affect ITVs, studies that span sub-disciplines (see paper above).
- A scoping review of feed interventions and livelihoods of small-scale livestock keepers. Three things: consider absorptive capacity of livestock keepers and extensionists, focus on semi-commercial sector, consider resource requirements of feed options. It’s all in the podcast. Remarkable similarity with the vegetables thing above, eh?
- Induced Polyploidy: A Tool for Forage Species Improvement. Two things. Thanks, colchicine.
- Varietal selection in marginal agroecological niches and cultural landscapes: the case of rice in the Togo Hills. Three things: participation, low-input conditions, landraces.
- Three founding ancestral genomes involved in the origin of sugarcane. A, B and C.
- “Essential non‐essentials”: COVID‐19 policy missteps in Nigeria rooted in persistent myths about African food supply chains. Five things: imports are not central to food security, rural families buy a lot of food, small farmers access markets after all, small & medium enterprises are hidden but not missing, domestic distribution is important.
- What Should Farmers’ Rights Look Like? The Possible Substance of a Right. 64 things.
- The one hundred tree species prioritized for planting in the tropics and subtropics as indicated by database mining. Bingo!
Nibbles: Pastoralism, Chinese seeds, Livestock genetics comic
- What pastoralists know.
- What a Chinese organic farmer knows.
- What kids should know.
Brainfood: Green Revolution, Hybrid wheat, Pacific PGRFA, Temperate maize, Maize seed, Yemeni coffee, Nutrition agriculture, Vanilla breeding, Cultivar mixture, Meta-analysis, Algerian forages
- Health Impacts of the Green Revolution: Evidence from 600,000 births across the Developing World. Modern varieties reduced infant mortality from 18% to 12-15% across 21,604 locations in 37 developing countries between 1961–2000.
- Wide adaptation of Green Revolution wheat: International roots and the Indian context of a new plant breeding ideal, 1960–1970. Thank goodness for photoperiod insensitivity, eh?
- The genetic basis of cytoplasmic male sterility and fertility restoration in wheat. Does this mean hybrid wheat is the next revolution?
- Unlocking the inherent potential of plant genetic resources: food security and climate adaptation strategy in Fiji and the Pacific. The Pacific is still waiting for its revolution.
- A worldwide maize panel revealed new genetic variation for cold tolerance. Inbreds from Minnesota and Spain could spearhead a temperate maize revolution.
- Seed longevity of maize conserved under germplasm bank conditions for up to 60 years. Keep those Minnesotan and Spanish inbreds cold, whatever you do.
- Unveiling a unique genetic diversity of cultivated Coffea arabica L. in its main domestication center: Yemen. Unique Yemeni material could spearhead a coffee revolution. How to store those seeds, though?
- Household behaviour and nutrition-sensitive agricultural practices: Experiences of smallholder farmers in Northern West Bengal, India. Maybe what’s needed is a revolution in women’s empowerment.
- The beautiful hills: half a century of vanilla (Vanilla planifolia Jacks. ex Andrews) breeding in Madagascar. There was a vanilla revolution in Madagascar in the 50s and nobody knows about it.
- The potential of cultivar mixtures to reduce fungicide input and mitigate fungicide resistance development. The cultivar mixture revolution is still to come.
- Dynamic meta-analysis: a method of using global evidence for local decision making. The tender green shoots of a data-driven revolution?
- Molecular characterization of Algerian populations of cocksfoot and tall fescue: Ploidy level determination and genetic diversity analysis. I just like the word cocksfoot.