- Valuing cultural ecosystem services: Agricultural heritage in Chiloé island, southern Chile. Willingness to pay at US$50.5 per person per year, and not related to distance from site.
- Assessments of genetic diversity and anthracnose disease response among Zimbabwe sorghum germplasm. New sources of resistance (for the US) in even a moderately diverse collection.
- Karyotype Analysis of Wild Rosa Species in Xinjiang, Northwestern China. It’s just amazing to me that people still do karyopypes.
- Explaining intraspecific diversity in plant secondary metabolites in an ecological context. Trait variance in these things is considerable, partly genetic and can evolve, maybe even faster than mean trait values.
- Identifying genetic diversity and a preliminary core collection of Pyrus pyrifolia cultivars by a genome-wide set of SSR markers. Close relationship between China and Japan, and Sichuan a bit of a nexus.
- Genomic Signature of Adaptation to Climate in Medicago truncatula. Found genes associated with position along 3 environmental clines in a set of populations, then were able to predict performance of other populations based on genotype.
- Could abiotic stress tolerance in wild relatives of rice be used to improve Oryza sativa? Yes, and from these particular places.
- An efficient method of developing synthetic allopolyploid rice (Oryza spp.). Should make using those wild relatives a bit easier.
- Can barley (Hordeum vulgare L. s.l.) adapt to fast climate changes? A controlled selection experiment. Maybe not. Not even the landrace.
- Coffee landscapes as refugia for native woody biodiversity as forest loss continues in southwest Ethiopia. “Coffee farms could support a considerable portion, though not all, of the woody biodiversity of disappearing forests.” No word on what it does to the coffee, though.
Nibbles: Not just yield, Nutrition infographic, Kenya tea, Tree domestication, Golden Rice talk, iRNA, Urban ag, Indian homegardens, Chocolate pix
- Ann Tutwiler, DG of Bioversity, on why we have to solve a quadratic equation of food security now. But is it 7,000 edible plant species, or 12,000? h/t Nancy Castaldo
- Go to page 9 for a cool infographic on nutrition which kinda illustrates that. But really, what a palaver to find it. Which actually I did via Twitter.
- Quadratic? More like non-linear para-differential equations. Or one of those weird things out of chaos theory.
- You can bet ICRAF think one solution to that equation involves the domestication of fruit trees.
- Is Golden Rice another solution? There’s a debate later tonight that might help you decide.
- And while we’re dealing with gene jockeys, apparently RNAi is the Next Big Thing.
- Community, ecosystems, poverty reduction; urban agriculture can do it all. And Dyno Keating, DG of AVRDC, would probably agree.
- And here’s a big PDF from the Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems to show you exactly how. Who needs equations?
- Fed up with maths? Cacao, bean to bar, in photos.
Nibbles: Sowing seeds, Indian livestock, Ancient chocolate, W African cooking, ICRISAT chickpea
- The need for seed.
- If you need to know about the conservation of animal genetic resources in India, this hour-long video may be just what you’re looking for.
- Reconstructing Mesoamerican chocolate.
- Re-imagining West African cooking.
- ICRISAT finds 6 cool chickpea varieties in its genebank. No word on who lost them in the first place.
Brainfood: Tanzanian maize, ITK, Genebank value, Congolese bananas, Amaranth domestication, Ethiopian coffees, Dacryodes diversity, Apple diversity, Breeding pulses, Commons, Beet genetic structure, Restoring landscapes, Indian agrobiodiversity
- Modern maize varieties going local in the semi-arid zone in Tanzania. OPVs from the 80s are creolizing still, and that’s a good thing.
- Traditional Knowledge Systems, International Law and National Challenges: Marginalization or Emancipation? Well, it looks like it’s the former, but should be the latter. ‘Twas ever thus.
- Valuing insurance services emerging from a gene bank: The case of the Greek Gene Bank. Benefits are greater than costs. Phew.
- Banana genotype composition along the Uganda-Democratic Republic of Congo border: a gene pool mix for plantain and highland bananas. You can still find new stuff. And get funding to look for it, clearly.
- Relationships between the Weedy Amaranthus hybridus (Amaranthaceae) and the Grain Amaranths. Multiple domestications? And why not.
- Genetic Diversity Analysis of Some Ethiopian Specialty Coffee (Coffea arabica L.) Germplasm Accessions Based on Morphological Traits. As ever, useful variation was found. We await its arrival in our morning cup.
- Genetic diversity of Dacryodes buettneri (Engl.) H.J. Lam (Burseraceae), a timber tree in Central Africa. There is some. It could be important, yada yada.
- Malus sieversii: A Diverse Central Asian Apple Species in the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System. The infra-specific taxa may not hold up.
- Exploiting Genomic Resources for Efficient Conservation and Use of Chickpea, Groundnut, and Pigeonpea Collections for Crop Improvement. It’s so close, these guys can taste it. When will we?
- Is genetic information a commons? Maybe it should be.
- Genetic structure and gene flow in Beta vulgaris subspecies maritima along the Atlantic coast of France. The latitudinal cline that wasn’t.
- Restoration of degraded agricultural terraces: Rebuilding landscape structure and process. Restoration is not enough, you need continuous management thereafter. Probably applies to the agricultural biodiversity too, when you think about it.
- Agro-biodiversity in rice–wheat-based agroecosystems of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India: implications for conservation and sustainable management. Resource-poor farmers are better at agrobiodiversity conservation than rich ones. ‘Twas ever thus.
Nibbles: ICRISAT award, CGIAR funding, Chinese medicine, Gut bacteria, Bee research, Sri Lankan law, Wolf Prize, Field Guides, Tapa exhibition, GFFA2014
- Today in dodgy journalism, part 1: ICRISAT gets a new mandate crop? What was the picture editor thinking. And smoking.
- Today in dodgy journalism, part 2: Two typos in the obsolete name of the CGIAR.
- Dissecting Chinese traditional medicine. Or would that be puncturing?
- Hunter gatherers have special gut bacteria.
- Bees: “That’s the beauty of the research. Because we’re still short on info, everything’s worth knowing about.”
- Maple syrup tasting. Nice gig if you can get it.
- Activist objects to proposed new seed law in Sri Lanka.
- UC Davis wheat geneticist Jorge Dubcovsky wins 2014 Wolf Prize in Agriculture. Congrats.
- Sandy Knapp on what she does all day.
- The future of field guides. Yes, they have one.
- Tapa cloth, in Cologne of all places. Don’t think there were any from Palau, though.
- Abschlusskommuniqué of the Global Forum on Food and Agriculture 2014 supports conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity. Phew.