- Assessing Sus scrofa diversity among continental United States, and Pacific islands populations using molecular markers from a gene banks collection. The feral pigs of the Pacific may be a nuisance, but they represent an interesting genetic melange.
- Identification of a mutant from Arachis veigae with enhanced seed oleic and very long-chain fatty acid content. Gotta love crop wild relatives.
- Coffee Farmers’ Motivations to Comply with Sustainability Standards. Show them the money.
- The Globalisation of Plant Variety Protection: Are Developing Countries Still Policy Takers? Depends on how you look at it.
- Grass to grain: Probabilistic modeling of agricultural conversion in the North American Great Plains. It’s still happening.
- Spatial priorities for agricultural development in the Brazilian Cerrado: may economy and conservation coexist? See above.
- Phytosanitary management of Citrus germplasm in France. Better safe than sorry.
- Genomics-based diversity analysis of Vanilla species using a Vanilla planifolia draft genome and Genotyping-By-Sequencing. And just like that, there’s a new germplasm collection on the block. And it’s all genotyped.
- Sources of Resistance for Two-spotted Spider Mite (Tetranychus urticae) in Scarlet (Solanum aethiopicum L.) and Gboma (S. macrocarpon L.) Eggplant Germplasms. They have glandular trichomes.
- First detection of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense tropical race 4 (TR4) on Cavendish banana in India. Be afraid.
- Wheat tandem kinases provide insights on disease‐resistance gene flow and host–parasite co‐evolution. The allele for resistance was left behind during domestication.
- Systematic review of use and interpretation of dietary diversity indicators in nutrition-sensitive agriculture literature. Needs more standardization.
- Whole-genome resequencing reveals Brassica napus origin and genetic loci involved in its improvement. Hybrid of the ancestor of European turnip and the common ancestor of kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, and Chinese kale.
- Molecular characterization of Ecuadorian quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) diversity: implications for conservation and breeding. 3 groups, but no geographic structure.
- Resilience, Stability, and Productivity of Alfalfa Cultivars in Rainfed Regions of North America. Difficult for a cultivar to be all three.
- Dioscorea dumetorum (Kunth) Pax, a neglected and underutilized yam species in Benin: folk classification and post-harvest conservation. Needs work before it’s too late.
Nibbles: Noris Ledesma, Anuradha Naik, CePaCT, Food system metaphors, Vintage cookbooks, Eat this cereal podcast
- The mango whisperer.
- Conserving the Khola chilli.
- Going back to Fiji for this fundraising meeting next week. Follow along on Twitter.
- Are we on the Titanic?
- Vintage cookbooks galore. If we’re going down, might as well go down in style.
- Jeremy’s podcast on cereal cultivation’s 3-step program for spreading around Eurasia.
Nibbles: Red weevil, Mexican heirlooms, Double coffee, Heirloom pig, Biosaline genebank
- The date palm has a red weevil problem, but FAO is on it.
- Refried beans.
- Sarada Krishnan on her life in coffee. If there’s good news for the crop, it’s partly because of her.
- Mangalitsa in Rome. Jeremy reports.
- ICBA joins the international genebank club. FAO is on it.
Nibbles: Food biodiversity, Crowdsourcing seeds, A2S, Women & seeds, Cowpea breeding, Heirlooms vs GM, Green Revolution revisionism, Plant health book, ICRISAT genebank, Chinese national genebank, Tea research, Paper mulberry genome, Grape map, Italian olive apocalypse
- Chefs innovating with biodiversity.
- Citizen seed science comes of age.
- Which is just as well, because seed companies could be doing a better job.
- Though women are trying.
- Hang on there, the private sector set to rescue the cowpea.
- A tale of two paradigms.
- But is one of the paradigms in trouble?
- 50 years of plant health research in Africa.
- Greening the genebanks.
- But how green is “China’s Noah’s Ark“?
- And does it have any tea?
- Fortunately, the paper mulberry’s genome is consistent with Chinese philosophy.
- Italy’s vineyards get mapped.
- It may be too late for Italy’s olives though.
Nibbles: I say potato, CATIE genebank, Wat, Teff war, Digitizing collections, Black History Month, Crop stats
- Genebanks, crop wild relatives, friends, even a cool title — this one has it all: The New Potato.
- Latest on the CATIE seed collection.
- The wonder of Ethiopian food.
- Which I guess can include teff again now.
- Digitizing the Smithsonian — fast.
- George Washington Carver celebrated.
- Oh look, there’s a new version of SPAM. Let the GISsing begin.