- Whole-genome landscape of Medicago truncatula symbiotic genes. There’s always something else.
- Genebank genomics highlights the diversity of a global barley collection. IPK’s, that is, and that’s 22,000 strong. Let the GWAS begin. Including for whisky-related traits, of course.
- A polyploid admixed origin of beer yeasts derived from European and Asian wine populations. And beer-related.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of a mini-core subset from the world cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) germplasm collection. There are three broadly geographic clusters, and the mini-core is representative of overall diversity, in Africa at least.
- Identification of candidate domestication‐related genes with a systematic survey of loss‐of‐function mutations. Fancy methods lead to doubling of possible domestication genes in soybean to 110.
- Social Valuation of Genebank Activities: Assessing Public Demand for Genetic Resource Conservation in the Czech Republic. Willingness to pay is $9 per sample. But this is unpacked in a guest post by Nik.
- Gene bank scheduling of seed regeneration: Interim report on a long term storage study. Maybe someone can tell me what’s new here?
- Functional phenomics: An emerging field integrating high-throughput phenotyping, physiology, and bioinformatics. Again, what exactly is new here, apart from the word pheme?
- Xanthomonas Wilt of Banana (BXW) in Central Africa: Opportunities, challenges, and pathways for citizen science and ICT-based control and prevention strategies. Technology is not enough.
- Beyond individuals: Toward a “distributed” approach to farmer decision‐making behavior. And even if it were enough, adoption is a whole ‘nother thing…
- Dietary Diversity: Implications for Obesity Prevention in Adult Populations: A Science Advisory From the American Heart Association. As currently defined, dietary diversity does not necessarily mean healthy eating.
- Modern Wheat Varieties as a Driver of the Degradation of Spanish Rainfed Mediterranean Agroecosystems throughout the 20th Century. Under traditional organic management, older varieties have similar yields to modern varieties, plus more biomass both above and below ground, making for better soils.
- Peculiarly pleasant weather for US maize. Adaptation to warmer climates accounts for 28% of yield increases since 1981. It won’t last, see below.
- Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate. Losses to insects will increase by 10 to 25% per degree Celsius of warming for wheat, rice, and maize.
- Metabolite variation in the lettuce gene pool: towards healthier crop varieties and food. Tasty lettuce is possible.
- Genome sequences of two diploid wild relatives of cultivated sweetpotato reveal targets for genetic improvement. Carotenoid biosynthesis alleles identified.
- Climate change stimulated agricultural innovation and exchange across Asia. Climate models suggest that about 3,500 years ago Central Asia and Tibet cooled, and 2,000 years ago China followed suit, in both cases leading to shifts in crops.
- Intensification for redesigned and sustainable agricultural systems. Depends on building social capital first.
Brainfood: Global taro, Gender gap, Eschatology, Cacao domestication double, Soybean epigenetics, Rice domestication, Domestication space, Botanic gardens, Agrarian care, Open seeds, Sustainable nutrition, Broadbean breeding, Resistant beans, Yam environments, Trade networks
- Conserving and Sharing Taro Genetic Resources for the Benefit of Global Taro Cultivation: A Core Contribution of the Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees. The first line of defence against Taro Leaf Blight, among other things.
- Female access to fertile land and other inputs in Zambia: why women get lower yields. Because they’re stuck with the poorer soils. I’m assuming there was some control for maize variety, but the damn thing is behind a paywall. LATER: Yeah, they controlled for hybrid vs open pollinated variety.
- Towards a dialogue of sustainable agriculture and end-times theology in the United States: insights from the historical ecology of nineteenth century millennial communes. In other news, it has become necessary to reconcile the apocalypse with sustainability.
- Population genomic analyses of the chocolate tree, Theobroma cacao L., provide insights into its domestication process. Domestication was both good and bad.
- The use and domestication of Theobroma cacao during the mid-Holocene in the upper Amazon. Archaeology says domestication in western Amazon in line with above (somewhere in Ecuador?), but earlier than thought.
- DNA methylation footprints during soybean domestication and improvement. Differentially methylated regions are particularly genetically diverse.
- Major domestication-related phenotypes in indica rice are due to loss of miRNA-mediated laccase silencing. Not so much the genes, as their regulation.
- Phylogenetic patterns and phenotypic profiles of the species of plants and mammals farmed for food. Plants and animals are different.
- Botanic Gardens Complement Agricultural Gene Bank in Collecting and Conserving Plant Genetic Diversity. 6000 taxa in 68 crop genera are in botanic gardens. Check out the rest of the special edition of Biopreservation and Biobanking on agricultural genebanks.
- Plants: Crop diversity pre‐breeding technologies as agrarian care co‐opted? Pre-breeding ignores farmers’ knowledge.
- The Open Source Seed Licence: A novel approach to safeguarding access to plant germplasm. Seeds will find a way.
- When too much isn’t enough: Does current food production meet global nutritional needs? No: grow more food and vegetables.
- Breeding and genomics status in faba bean (Vicia faba). Plenty of diversity to be still used. Pass the chianti.
- QTL Mapping of Resistance to Bean Weevil in Common Bean. Based on a cross between the susceptible Zambian landrace Solwezi and the resistant breeding line AO-1012-29-3-3A. But which Solwezi? I hope there’s a DOI in the actual paper for those who get through the paywall.
- Spatial Multivariate Cluster Analysis for Defining Target Population of Environments in West Africa for Yam Breeding. 7 mega-environments identified, but what I want to know is if any are under-represented in terms of material in the genebank.
- Economic shifts in agricultural production and trade due to climate change. Under mitigation scenarios trade networks for agricultural commodities get more distributed, and possibly therefore more stable. So that’s another reason to mitigate C emissions, you know, apart from saving the planet.
Nibbles: Sheepish, Camel caravan, More sheep, Cheese protection, CATAN, Qat, FAO online double, Potato in NZ, NUS dossier, Ramosmania
- There’s a world of coloured sheep out there, and a conference.
- Not to mention camels.
- Does this cute sheep qualify as coloured?
- You can’t copyright a cheese in Europe. Worth a Brexit joke? No.
- Like board games? You’ll LOVE this.
- Speaking of games, the only thing qat is good for is to use up your Q in Scrabble. Which is why you won’t find it in the new CATAN, despite the tempting near-homophony.
- Learn about the SDG 2.5 indicators from FAO.
- Oh, and since you’re there, take a gander at their new biodiversity website.
- Climate change affecting potato production in New Zealand.
- I think I may have overlooked this CTA Dossier on underutilized crops and nutrition, which is naughty of me.
- Coaxing “cafe marron” to have sex with itself.
Brainfood: Climate resilient crops, Food system limits, Phenotyping double, Sweet sorghum, Melon history, Paying4data, Beercalypse, Village chickens, Breeding 4.0, European maize, Brachiaria ROI
- Are agricultural researchers working on the right crops to enable food and nutrition security under future climates? No. Well, kinda.
- Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits. You need to pursue several. Including those discussed above, presumably.
- Deep Learning for Plant Stress Phenotyping: Trends and Future Perspectives. 3D CNN architectures applied to hyperspectral imaging is the future, apparently.
- Dealing with multi‐source and multi‐scale information in plant phenomics: the ontology‐driven Phenotyping Hybrid Information System. You’re going to need a fancy system to keep track to the data from the above.
- Sweet Sorghum Originated through Selection of Dry, a Plant-specific NAC Transcription Factor Gene. Could be applied to other cereals?
- Repeated domestication of melon (Cucumis melo) in Africa and Asia and a new close relative from India. Once was not enough.
- Paying for Digital Information: Assessing Farmers Willingness to Pay for a Digital Agriculture and Nutrition Service in Ghana. Cheaper is better. There’s a shocker. Oh, and women are more careful with their money.
- Decreases in global beer supply due to extreme drought and heat. 32% decrease in consumption in Argentina, 193% increase in price in Ireland. But clearly the authors have never heard of sorghum beer.
- The role of local adaptation in sustainable production of village chickens. Location, location, location.
- On the Road to Breeding 4.0: Unraveling the Good, the Bad, and the Boring of Crop Quantitative Genomics. Beyond breeding on predicted phenotypes, it’s sort of breeding for predicted environments.
- Maize yields over Europe may increase in spite of climate change, with an appropriate use of the genetic variability of flowering time. You don’t even need Breeding 1.0, if you deploy existing diversity optimally.
- Got forages? Understanding potential returns on investment in Brachiaria spp. for dairy producers in Eastern Africa. Definitely worth a flutter.
Brainfood: Emmer & drought, European legumes, Sainfoin, Alpine nomads, American domestication, Cereal domestication, Tree plantations, Garlic breeding, African veggies, African staple breeding, Sugarcane genome
- Genetic contribution of emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccon Schrank) to heat tolerance of bread wheat. It’s considerable.
- Warm Season Grain Legume Landraces from the South of Europe for Germplasm Conservation and Genetic Improvement. Ok ex situ, in situ not so much.
- Onobrychis viciifolia; a comprehensive literature review of its history, etymology, taxonomy, genetics, agronomy and botany. The fall and rise of an orphan forage.
- Interstitial but Resilient: Nomadic Shepherds in Piedmont (Northwest Italy) Amidst Spatial and Social Marginalization. Truly a vale of tears.
- Parallel vs. Convergent Evolution in Domestication and Diversification of Crops in the Americas. Still can’t tell which is more prevalent.
- Whole-Genome Analysis of Candidate genes Associated with Seed Size and Weight in Sorghum bicolor Reveals Signatures of Artificial Selection and Insights into Parallel Domestication in Cereal Crops. 63 seed size genes selected during domestication in sorghum, a significant number of which in maize and rice also.
- A systematic review of the socio-economic impacts of large-scale tree plantations, worldwide. Not a good idea.
- Recent Advances in Sexual Propagation and Breeding of Garlic. Restoration of flowering ability has done wonders for diversity. With diversity poster goodness.
- Core collection of two important indigenous vegetables; Gboma eggplant (Solanum macrocarpon L.) and Jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius L.) in Africa: An important step for exploitation of existing germplasm and development of improved cultivars. Interesting, of course, but I wouldn’t call these core collections. But I won’t complain again if it gets the stuff used more.
- Measuring the impact of plant breeding on sub-Saharan African staple crops. High ROI for the usual suspects. How about the traditional veggies et al., though. Anyway, do readers want more on this paper? Let me know in the comments if you want a full post on the main findings.
- Allele-defined genome of the autopolyploid sugarcane Saccharum spontaneum L. A lot of the good stuff is in wild-cultivated rearranged chromosomes.