Climate change

July 10, 2019October 18, 2019

Reforestation: Where, why, and how much?

There’s been a spate of papers on reforestation just lately and I was despairing of being able to keep track of them, let alone read them. But along comes Jonah Busch, Chief Economist at Earth Innovation, to make sense of all the maps in a couple of tweets:

Here are maps of reforestation's potential, feasibility and benefits, and costs pic.twitter.com/fK3jyFPjSr

— Jonah Busch (@jonahbusch) July 5, 2019

Here are the papers:

Potential: The global tree restoration potential.
Opportunities: Global restoration opportunities in tropical rainforest landscapes.
Costs: Potential for low-cost carbon dioxide removal through tropical reforestation.

Thanks, Jonah!

LATER: There’s a nice round-up of two of the studies in Mother Nature Network. Bottom line is in the title: Massive reforestation might be the moonshot we need to slow down climate change. That doesn’t mean forests are a silver bullet, though.

LATER STILL: And, of course, who is also important.

AND FINALLY: Some objections have arisen…

July 8, 2019February 18, 2020

Brainfood: Molecular characterization, Ancient weed, Patagonian berries, Strawberry origins controversy, Potato & nutrition, European potatoes, Extension, Cacao, Maize & wheat breeding history, Rural employment, Production stability, Amazonian Neolithic, Fairtrade wages

Genebank genomics bridges the gap between the conservation of crop diversity and plant breeding. What do we want? An accurate genotype-to-phenotype map for all seeds stored in the genebank. When do we want it? As soon as we have the money to ensure their conservation.
The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs. Well, that’s like your opinion, man. Residues in incense burners used for mortuary rituals, if you must know.
Patagonian berries as native food and medicine. Good, and good for you.
Revisiting the Origin of the Octoploid Strawberry. Not 4 separate diploid progenitors, as another paper recently found, but rather 2 extant ones, once you re-do the math.
The Nutritional Contribution of Potato Varietal Diversity in Andean Food Systems: a Case Study. It’s great, but it’s not enough.
The origins and adaptation of European potatoes reconstructed from historical genomes. Sequencing of old herbarium specimens, including Darwin’s, shows that early introductions to Europe were from the Andes, and later admixed there with Chilean and wild material, forming a sort of secondary centre of diversity.
Effect of Intensive Agriculture-Nutrition Education and Extension Program Adoption and Diffusion of Biofortified Crops. Breeding is not enough.
Morphological characterisation and evaluation of cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) in Trinidad to facilitate utilisation of Trinitario cacao globally. Now we know which ones are the best, for different reasons.
Evolution of US maize (Zea mays L.) root architectural and anatomical phenes over the past 100 years corresponds to increased tolerance of nitrogen stress. There has been unconscious selection for root traits resulting in better N use efficiency. An old paper, resurrected because of the next one.
Breeding improves wheat productivity under contrasting agrochemical input levels. Breeding wheat in Europe for good performance under high input levels has not markedly affected its performance under more challenging conditions. Diversity has held up too.
Positive outcomes between crop diversity and agricultural employment worldwide. Irrespective of input levels and economic growth rates.
National food production stabilized by crop diversity. Crop diversity is not just good for rural employment (see above), but for year-on-year production stability too.
Climate change and cultural resilience in late pre-Columbian Amazonia. And it was sort of the same in ancient Amazonia.
Effects of Fairtrade on the livelihoods of poor rural workers. Fairtrade improves wages of workers in cooperatives, but not on small farms.

July 4, 2019July 4, 2019

Nibbles: Tutwiler interview, Cherokee seeds, Cryo, Bordeaux rules, Oz maize, Food as medicine, In situ CWR

Ann Tutwiler (ex Bioversity DG) on the importance of agrobiodiversity.
Cherokee Nation may deposit seeds in Svalbard.
Millionth sample deposited in USDA livestock genebank.
New grape varieties to be allowed in Bordeaux because of climate change.
Hawkesbury heritage maize regenerated.
Some Filipino rice is medicinal.
Germany designates first CWR genetic reserves in Europe.

July 2, 2019July 1, 2019

Nibbles: Bean and chili diversity, European Neolithic, Microbiota Vault, Paški sir, Freeze dried potatoes, Rice art, ABS

Collecting beans in the American SW.
Chilis too.
Updated map of Neolithic expansion in Europe.
The Microbiota Vault is a thing.
Wind-flavoured cheese.
But is chuño worth saving, really?
The art of rice diversity.
Using Jerry Maguire to explain the Plant Treaty. It is not well done. But one is surprised to see it done at all.

June 17, 2019June 25, 2019

Brainfood: Seed viability double, Forest reserves, Biodiversity value, Hunter-gatherers, Seed concentration, Past CC, Hot lablab, Mungbean adoption, Climate smart impacts, Tree threats, Chicken domestication, Top sorghum, Ancient wines, Plant extinctions

Variation in seed longevity among diverse Indica rice varieties. 8 major loci associated with seed longevity.
Seeds and the Art of Genome Maintenance. Viability is about the DNA repair response. Snap.
Are Mayan community forest reserves effective in fulfilling people’s needs and preserving tree species? Sure they are.
The power of argument. People don’t respond to utilitarian arguments when it comes to biodiversity. In the Netherlands.
Do modern hunter-gatherers live in marginal habitats? Nope. What can I tell ya?
New evidence on concentration in seed markets. Not as bad as some people think.
Climate change has likely already affected global food production. From 2003 to 2008, there’s been a ~1% average reduction in consumable food calories in barley, cassava, maize, oil palm, rapeseed, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane and wheat.
Selection of Heat Tolerant Lablab. 6 out of 44 accessions from the WorldVeg genebank are heat tolerant. Seems a lot.
Counting the beans: quantifying the adoption of improved mungbean varieties in South Asia and Myanmar. 1.2 million farmers reached by WorldVeg varieties. Lablab next?
Climate smart agricultural practices and gender differentiated nutrition outcome: An empirical evidence from Ethiopia. They work, but they’re better in combination.
Pests and diseases of trees in Africa: A growing continental emergency. Into Africa…
Genetics of adaptation in modern chicken. Not much of a domestication bottleneck; that came later.
Multi-Trait Diverse Germplasm Sources from Mini Core Collection for Sorghum Improvement. From 40,000 in the genebank, to 242 in the mini-core, to 6 really cool ones (from Yemen, USA, China, Mozambique, and India x2 if you must know).
Palaeogenomic insights into the origins of French grapevine diversity. Ancient DNA from 28 pips dating back to the Iron Age provides pretty good matches to grapes grown today.
Global dataset shows geography and life form predict modern plant extinction and rediscovery. Almost 600 plants went extinct in modern times, at least, and I count about 20 crop wild relatives among them.