- Climate change may outpace current wheat breeding yield improvements in North America. Breeders need to try harder, at least for spring wheat.
- Large-scale genotyping and phenotyping of a worldwide winter wheat genebank for its use in pre-breeding. But winter wheat could do with some help too, and genebanks are there for you, breeders.
- Exotic alleles contribute to heat tolerance in wheat under field conditions. Maybe wild relatives are the answer?
- Agronomic assessment of two populations of intermediate wheatgrass—Kernza® (Thinopyrum intermedium) in temperate South America. Even really, really wild, and perennial, relatives.
- Sustained productivity and agronomic potential of perennial rice. Maybe perennial wheat breeders can learn from perennial rice breeders.
- CGIAR Barley Breeding Toolbox: A diversity panel to facilitate breeding and genomic research in the developing world. Good to see barley is not being left behind. Perennial barley next, anyone?
- Developing drought-smart, ready-to-grow future crops. It’s not like breeders have no idea about what to do and how to do it…
- Molecular evidence for adaptive evolution of drought tolerance in wild cereals. …and there’s diversity out there in the wild relatives to play with. Even without getting into the weird perennial stuff.
- Impact of CGIAR maize germplasm in Sub-Saharan Africa. So let’s be optimistic, there are success stories. Although, cripes, I’d like to see perennial maize.
- Genomic prediction for the Germplasm Enhancement of Maize project. Which is not to say there’s no room for improvement too.
- Maize plants and the brace roots that support them. Yeah, like for example how many of these fancy CGIAR and GEM maize varieties have brace roots?
- Retrospective study in US commercial sorghum breeding: I. Genetic gain in relation to relative maturity. US breeders have been really successful for sorghum too, though maybe not successful enough.
- Evaluation of a Subset of Ethiopia Sorghum Collection Germplasm from the National Genetic Resources Program of the United States Department of Agriculture for Anthracnose Resistance. And that success may be spilling over to Ethiopia. Well I’d like to think so anyway, or the whole conceit of this Brainfood will go up in smoke.
- Genomics-based assembly of a sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench core collection in the Uganda national genebank as a genetic resource for sustainable sorghum breeding. And maybe Uganda too? Yes, I’m doubling down.
- GridScore: a tool for accurate, cross-platform phenotypic data collection and visualization. All these breeders need to store and manage their data, of course, and here’s a way to do that.
- The Impact of N.I. Vavilov on the Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources in Scandinavia: A Review. Arguably all of the above is the result of the sort of international collaboration that Vavilov exemplified, perhaps even pioneered?
Nibbles: Eating to Extinction, Livestock Conservancy, Pastoral diversification, Donkeys, ICARDA, USDA, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Duragna, Baked bean bread, Kenosha Potato Project, Landrace marketing, Gene editing
- All the videos from the recent Eating to Extinction event in London celebrating food diversity.
- If you want to eat rare breeds or their products, the Livestock Conservancy has a website for you.
- ILRI policy brief on how pastoral systems can usefully diversify.
- The BBC rounds up the history of the domestication of the donkey without, alas, mentioning the Livestock Conservancy or pastoral diversification. Spoiler alert: ancient Roman donkeys were really big.
- NPR interviews the manager of the ICARDA genebank in Lebanon.
- Local Oregon paper visits the USDA genebank in Pullman.
- It’s the turn of the Native Seed/SEARCH genebank to feature in the news.
- Want to know what “duragna” is? This press release from Cornell will explain all. I think we included the original paper in a recent Brainfood, but I can’t be bothered checking. Anyway, trust me, it’s interesting. Spoiler alert: it has to do with cereal diversity.
- Brits told to grow more faba beans and use them to make bread. Census takers not available for comment.
- Fascinating project on the history of saffron cultivation in eastern England. Now that would spice up all that faba bean bread.
- The Kenosha Potato Project deconstructed to within an inch of its life by Modern Farmer. We’ve blogged about this innovative breeding project here before, have a look. Ah no, I just have, and in fact we haven’t, though we have blogged about William Whitson, an independent tuber breeder, who is however a long-time member of KPP.
- Meanwhile, in Peru, local potato landraces are finding a new market via chips/crisps. Pretty sure we’ve blogged about this too. We are so on the ball.
- Gene editing for conservation? Yes, why not? But nothing on crop and livestock species in this succinct explainer, alas.
Brainfood: Sustainable diets, Resilient food system, IK in food systems double, Herbarium double, Ag research priorities, Fruits & vegetables, Cryopreservation, Diverse diets, Gene editing orphan crops, Ag revolution 4.0, Diversification, Monoculture, Agroecology, Regenerative ag, Plant health, Svalbard, Seed banking theory, Comms double
- Interventions for sourcing EAT-Lancet diets within national agricultural areas: A global analysis. Half the world’s population can eat healthily off the land in their own country, and 95% could.
- Reframing the local–global food systems debate through a resilience lens. Yeah, but there’s more to resilience than local vs global.
- Indigenous knowledge is key to sustainable food systems. Local people know all about sustainability and resilience.
- Global principles in local traditional knowledge: A review of forage plant-livestock-herder interactions. Yes, even — especially? — pastoral people.
- Using botanical resources to select wild forage legumes for domestication in temperate grassland agricultural systems. Not that said local people might not need a little help…
- The herbarium of the future. …for example from the herbarium of the future. Which actually sounds a lot like the genebank of the future.
- Multidimensional impacts from international agricultural research: Implications for research priorities. You want income growth? Invest in fruit and vegetables research and development. You want anything else? Cereals.
- Safeguarding and Using Fruit and Vegetable Biodiversity. Somebody mention fruit and vegetable R&D? Here’s how to start. Spoiler alert: the genebank of the future…
- In Vitro Conservation through Slow Growth Storage Technique of Fruit Species: An Overview of the Last 10 Years. …will need to be into cryo.
- Does the high dietary diversity score predict dietary micronutrients adequacy in children under 5 years old? A systematic review. This is why we need fruits and vegetables. But to eat them, not just to grow lots of them. How many of these kids are on the EAT-Lancet diet anyway?
- Integrating genomics and genome editing for orphan crop improvement: a bridge between orphan crops and modern agriculture system. And lots of fruits and vegetables are so-called orphan, and might need a helping hand, I suppose.
- The old, the new, or the old made new? Everyday counter-narratives of the so-called fourth agricultural revolution. A helping hand from technology you mean? Maybe, but best to mistrust grand narratives.
- Achieving win-win outcomes for biodiversity and yield through diversified farming. Adopting orphan crops can be route to farming system diversification, which can be good for both yields and biodiversity. How’s that for a grand narrative?
- Rapid transgenerational adaptation in response to intercropping reduces competition. Staple crops bred are adapted to monoculture? Not necessarily.
- Agroecology in the North: Centering Indigenous food sovereignty and land stewardship in agriculture “frontiers”. All this diversification is beginning to sound a lot like some kind of agroecology. Even in the Global North. And I mean very North.
- Regenerative food systems and the conservation of change. Ok, but agroecology is not about the practices employed, but rather how the system is organized. Always good to occasionally step back and theorize.
- Sustainable management of transboundary pests requires holistic and inclusive solutions. None of the above is going to work if we’re knee-deep in pests.
- The eternal return: Imagining security futures at the Doomsday Vault. Apocalypse. Hope. Escape. No grander narrative than that for the most iconic genebank of the present.
- Carrier Seeds: A Cultural Analysis of Care and Conflict in Four Seed Banking Practices. Genebanks (maybe even Svalbard?) conserve more than just seeds: the theory and the practice deconstructed.
- Why facts don’t change minds: Insights from cognitive science for the improved communication of conservation research. Ok, but how to communicate all the above for maximum impact? Spoiler alert: forget about disseminating scientific facts widely to change individual minds. Instead, target the behaviour of strategic groups through values and emotions…
- Spread the word: Sharing information on social media can stabilize conservation funding and improve ecological outcomes. …using social media. Wait, does that mean I have to TikTok all this stuff now?
Nibbles: Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Hemp collection, Community seedbank, Turkish national genebank, Olive park, Pillas, CIMMYT genebank
- A Canadian take on Svalbard.
- A Texas take on hemp conservation.
- A Zimbabwean take on community seedbanks.
- A Turkish take on genebanks.
- An Italian take on olive conservation.
- A Cornish take on heirloom oats.
- A Chinese take on the CIMMYT genebank.
Fact-checking The Economist on breadfruit
Last week’s The Economist has a nice piece in its Graphic Detail section on how climate change is affecting yields of some crops so much that farmers in many parts of the world will be increasingly tempted — if not compelled — to switch to different crops.
Even if more climate-resilient varieties of the crops farmers are currently growing come on-line, along with better agronomic practices, it may in some cases just be easier and more profitable to grow something else, says the article.
Like breadfruit, it adds, cheekily. Before concluding, rather more constructively, that, given the uncertainties involved, farmers should “learn about a wide variety of crops.”
I’d have liked to share a chart or two here, but the licensing paywall is steep, so I’ll just point to the four studies that the article references. Unlike The Economist, though, I’ll actually give the full titles, and link to the papers — Brainfood-style.
- Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change. Major cereals are going to take a significant hit over much of their area of cultivation by 2050.
- Climate impacts on global agriculture emerge earlier in new generation of climate and crop models. Newer crop and climate models are generally more pessimistic that older ones.
- Increased food production and reduced water use through optimized crop distribution. Shifting crops around in a clever way would feed an extra 850 million people while saving water.
- Matches and mismatches between the global distribution of major food crops and climate suitability. The match between where 12 crops actually grow and where they grow best is not optimal, but stronger in richer parts of the world.
LATER: Actually, let me add another one to the list, not in the piece in The Economist but also relevant, and complemented by a useful Q&A with one of the authors.
- Relocating croplands could drastically reduce the environmental impacts of global food production. Moving crops to where they do best decreases their carbon, biodiversity, and irrigation water footprint.