- Caution Needed When Predicting Species Threat Status for Conservation Prioritization on a Global Scale. Automated rapid preliminary assessments are all well and good, but…
- WorldFlora: An R package for exact and fuzzy matching of plant names against the World Flora Online Taxonomic Backbone data. Automated rapid taxonomic name checking is all well and good, but…
- Diverse approaches to crop diversification in agricultural research. A review. Too diverse.
- Reinventing quantitative genetics for plant breeding: something old, something new, something borrowed, something BLUE. Retire additive variance.
- Nikolaeva et al.’s reference book on seed dormancy and germination. A treasure trove of data comes to light.
- The reference genome of tea plant and resequencing of 81 diverse accessions provide insights into genome evolution and adaptation of tea plants. Three groups, originating in SW China.
- Taxonomic similarity does not predict necessary sample size for ex situ conservation: a comparison among five genera. The old rule-of-thumb of 50 individuals was not all that far off after all.
- Genetic assessment of the pomological classification of plum Prunus domestica L. accessions sampled across Europe. 93 unique accessions out of 104 across 14 partners. Pretty good, no?
- Genome‐wide association of volatiles reveals candidate loci for blueberry flavor. Can predict taste from genetics.
- Germination ecology of wild and domesticated Ensete ventricosum: Evidence for maintenance of sexual reproductive capacity in a vegetatively propagated perennial crop. Seeds from domesticated material are not much different from the wild ones, except in germination niche.
- Mining maize diversity and improving its nutritional aspects within agro‐food systems. Biofortification is only the beginning.
- Genetic Characterization of Grapevine Varieties from Emilia-Romagna (Northern Italy) Discloses Unexplored Genetic Resources. About half (62) of the unique accessions (122) in a collection (178) are hardly known.
Nibbles: Altitude coffee, Coffee audio, Grape breeding, Borlaug, Hunan genebank, Game of Thrones genetics
- Growing coffee at 2400m could be the new normal.
- A history of coffee rust, thanks to Prof. Stuart McCook and WCR. Not much of a problem at 2400m.
- Oh and here’s a podcast on the history of coffee, an interview with the author of Coffeeland: “drinking coffee is a symptom of working for other people.” Lot of that lately: In Our Time, Eat This Podcast.
- Breeding grapes the smart way. That just seems to mean have access to a germplasm collection and choose your parents carefully.
- Which is what Borlaug did. Ok, plus he was lucky.
- Hunan gets a genebank. Prosperity ensues.
- Could there have been a Green Revolution in Westeros? With that genetics?
Nibbles: Taste edition
- The Stairway to Heaven of barley breeding for whiskey involves thinking about taste a bit more.
- Taste comes into maize breeding too.
- Jeremy talks taste with Margot Finn. Oh and there’s his latest newsletter.
- Farmerama podcasts on cereals in small-scale farming in the UK and beyond.
- Nothing small-scale about ancient farming in the Nile Valley.
- Make ancient Roman bread during lockdown. Then compare and contrast with the Egyptian kind?
- What did the Romans ever do for the rural economy of Britain anyway?
- Course on communicating the value of biodiversity. Wasn’t all the above enough?
Nibbles: Tissue culture, Kenya pulses, Remote sensing, Planetary Computer, CIAT genebank, Faba bean, Cassava breeding, European re-wilding, Russian citrus, Green wine
- Special Issue “Role of Plant Tissue Culture in Agricultural Research and Production.” Deadline: 15 September. This year, I imagine.
- Kenya decolonizing it’s pulse sector.
- And it may be visible from space.
- Somebody mention space? Microsoft is way ahead of you.
- CIAT’s genebank working through lockdown, denies Phaseolus is colonial.
- How about soya then? That’s pretty colonial, surely? Ah, but faba is the new soya. Census takers unavailable for comment.
- Speaking of CIAT and its genebank, the rise and rise of cassava in Asia. And Nigeria? Let the neo-colonialism discourse begin.
- Re-wilding is not colonialism, is it?
- You can grow your lemons underground if it’s cold. Or just for the hell of it, frankly, because why not? Oh, yeah, there’s also breeding.
- Booze goes green. But not so green as to support genebanks.
Nibbles: Simran on Svalbard, Egyptian cotton, AgroecologyNow, Breeding trifecta, Rum, Potato double, Banana map, Climbing beans, Vegetable relatives, Cashew industry, Mongolian herders
- Simran Sethi’s Svalbard speech. See everything below for other examples of the importance of agricultural biodiversity.
- Egypt did not take good care of its cotton germplasm, and it went badly for them.
- AgroecologyNow has regular updates. Great name, by the way.
- Breeding for salt tolerance.
- Breeding for photosynthetic rate.
- Breeding as both science and art? Not entirely convincing, but ok.
- Making the most of sugarcane. Yeah, you guessed it, rum. There’s certainly an art to that.
- Not sure what brought on another humble-bragging potato piece, but I’m not complaining. Two pieces, in fact.
- Hey, we’re going to have a world banana map soon. Yes, another one. But this one will be different…
- Beans are climbing the list of important African crops. See what I did there?
- Vegetables have wild relatives too.
- Arizona has some interesting foods, old and new. Including vegetables.
- Cashew is the new avocado.
- Blockchain for Mongolian cashmere? I can’t rule it out.
- Sorghum is set to take over the South. Of the US, that is.