- Resistance and Tolerance to Root Herbivory in Maize Were Mediated by Domestication, Spread, and Breeding. Domestication and spread decreased maize resistance to Western corn rootworm, but breeding increased it.
- Does genetic diversity protect host populations from parasites? A meta‐analysis across natural and agricultural systems. Yes, but it depends. Western corn rootworm unavailable for comment.
- Genome of Solanum pimpinellifolium provides insights into structural variants during tomato breeding. Lots of variants in regulatory genes for agronomic traits, compared to domesticated lines.
- Genomic evidence for recurrent genetic admixture during the domestication of Mediterranean olive trees (Olea europaea L.). There was a domestication bottleneck back in the day, but that was almost wiped out by later repeated introgression from the wild relative as the crop spread. So quite different from the above maize and tomato cases?
- Multi-parent populations in crops: a toolbox integrating genomics and genetic mapping with breeding. Not just good for QTL mapping any more, but you need a whole package of stuff for them to be useful to breeding programmes.
- Current uses of Andean Roots and Tuber Crops in South American gourmet restaurants. None of the chefs interviewed knew of mauka, but it’s not their fault.
- Payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services: An overview of Latin American experiences, lessons learned and upscaling challenges. Conserving in situ 100 varieties on 5 hectares each would cost US$70,000 p.a. Maybe useful for mauka? But will chefs pay?
- Genetic and agro-morphological diversity in global barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) collection at ICARDA. Under heat stress, though, which is the important bit left out of the title. Unclear if any of the material was from the Canaries (see below), but I can find out if anyone’s interested. Come to think of it, I’m kinda interested myself…
- An Evolutionary Approach to the History of Barley (Hordeum vulgare) Cultivation in the Canary Islands. You can apparently infer historical extents of cultivation on different islands in the archipelago, as well as the timing of separation of populations, which is pretty amazing. No word on representation in rock art though (see below).
- Enset (Ensete ventricosum) and the Archaeology of Southwestern Ethiopia. Information comes mainly from megalithic and rock art sites, which is pretty amazing. No word on genetic relationships, at least in this paper. Do you need me to link to previous Brainfoods on enset? No, of course you don’t, you know how to search the archive. You just put your lips together, and
whistleblow (kudos to whoever quotes the reference in the comments first). - Relict Plant Communities at Prehispanic Sites in Oaxaca, Mexico: Historical Implications. Ancient native Mexicans really liked succulents around their settlements. Well, who wouldn’t, when all is said and done?
- To clean or not to clean: Cleaning open‐source data improves extinction risk assessments for threatened plant species. Clean. Always clean. And then clean again.
- Global Patterns and Drivers of Bee Distribution. Hope they cleaned the data or this unusual double-humped diversity pattern could be in trouble, and that would be a pity.
Nibbles: Seed pod, Lost Thanksgiving, Prairie crops, Wild PNG bananas, Seedkeeper Rowen White, Sustainable farming, Legume journal
- Podcast on saving crop diversity every which way you can.
- Because it can be lost.
- Yes, lost, but, with some effort, bison permitting, found again.
- Wild relatives too, of course.
- And maybe then rematriated, even used for a greener agriculture, who knows.
- So that eventually it can make it into things like Legume Perspective, the cool journal of the International Legume Society that was inexplicably unknown to me until just now.
Nibbles: Climate ready, Commoners, Beer, Banana collecting, Roman food, Indian corn
- Demoing new varieties in Mali.
- Old ways of doing things in the New Forest.
- Nice roundup of beer in ancient history.
- Profile of supercool banana guy Gabriel Sachter-Smith.
- Eat like a Roman.
- Eat like a (multiracial) Southerner.
Nibbles: MSB birthday, Ethiopia impact, Coffee threats, African greens
- It’s 20 years of the Millennium Seed Bank. Happy birthday!
- CGIAR summarizes 20 years of impact in Ethiopia.
- In 20 years, half of Africa’s coffee land could be gone. Well, 30, but I need to keep this streak going.
- Must have been about 20 years ago that systematic research on African indigenous vegetables really took off, and now look.
China’s path to new crops
Jeremy’s latest newsletter includes this nice write-up of a recent paper on the origins of Chinese food, under the title I’ve stolen above. Here’s the rest of the newsletter. We blogged here about the paper Jeremy discusses in the podcast episode mentioned at the end. LATER: There’s also a belated article in Archaeology.
Path dependence is the idea that the choices available today are constrained by choices that were made some time back. A new research paper in PLOS One looks at the way existing cooking techniques affected new crops as they made their way into China.
Wheat and barley arrived in China about 4000 years ago. But while the people of western China adopted the new plants quite quickly (you can tell by looking closely at their bones) those in central China were apparently not as keen.
The reason, according to the researchers, reflects north-south differences in cuisine that can be detected 8000 years ago. Northeners had millet as their staple grain, while southerners ate nuts, tubers, fruits and rice. Overlaid on this, central China is part of the northern complex, where millet was prepared by boiling or steaming the whole grain. Western China’s approach to wheat and barley was to mirror their neighbours to the west, grinding the grains to make flour that was baked into breads.
It took much longer for cooking methods in the east to adapt to the new cereals, not least because it takes far longer to boil wheat than millet, and the taste is quite different. There is some evidence, too, that in the course of this adaptation, wheat itself was selected to be more amenable to boiling and steaming.
This east-west vs north-south story adds detail to the [Eat This Podcast] episode with Martin Jones on Prehistoric food globalisation.