- Development of the first axillary in vitro shoot multiplication protocol for coconut palms. Cloning the tree of life, really fast.
- Frequent germplasm exchanges drive the high genetic diversity of Chinese-cultivated common apricot germplasm. Looking forward to the same being said about coconut.
- Crop diversity effects on temporal agricultural production stability across European regions. The effects are good.
- Are agricultural sustainability and resilience complementary notions? Evidence from the North European agriculture. They are indeed, but what about stability though?
- Seasonal variability of women’s dietary diversity and food provisioning: a cohort study in rural Burkina Faso. Do Europe now.
- The “Sweet Spot” in the Middle: Why Do Mid-Scale Farms Adopt Diversification Practices at Higher Rates? Spoiler alert: it’s got less to do with farm size than with access to resources and markets. At least for Californian lettuce farmers.
- Politics of seeds in Ethiopia’s agricultural transformation: pathways to seed system development. The Ethiopian seed system needs diversification just as much as Californian lettuce farmers.
- Biocultural Diversity for Food System Transformation Under Global Environmental Change. What we all need is biocultural diversity.
- Harnessing the diversity of small-scale actors is key to the future of aquatic food systems. Yes, all of us, whether in mountains or by the sea.
- Combatting global grassland degradation. It may be stretching a point, but biocultural diversity may also be a useful lens through which to look at grassland restoration and sustainable management. But then I would say that.
- Supporting wild pollinators in agricultural landscapes through targeted legume mixtures. Yeah, let’s not forget the pollinators while we’re at it.
Nibbles: Pasta al forno, Polynesian dispersal, Ryan Phelan talk
- More evidence that some food staples are going to be in trouble.
- Samoa to Rapa Nui in 400 years. But the Americas before that? Mash up with banana, taro and sweet potato next.
- TED talk on genetic rescue.
Nibbles: Eat This Newsletter, Basmati, DSI, NBPGR collecting, Ganja page
- Jeremy’s latest newsletter covers in more depth things we just Nibbled here, including perry and ancient bananas, plus much other stuff. We talked about “wild rice” here a couple of times.
- As for actual rice, the controversy between India and Pakistan about the origin of Basmati just got a bit more complicated. Could it in fact have come from Afghanistan?
- Maybe everyone should listen to Dr Amber Scholz’s ideas about ABS.
- Meanwhile, India’s National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources regional centre in Kumaon has been busy collecting germplasm. No word on whether that includes rice, Basmati or otherwise.
- Pretty cool way of presenting accession data, courtesy of Mystery Haze. I wonder where that’s from originally.
Brainfood: Diversification, Diverse diet, Urban forests, Local seed systems, Heterosis, Oil palm core, Black Sigatoka resistance, Pearl millet diversity, Alfalfa diversity, Barley evaluation x2, Ganja origins, Apple origins, Millet diversity, Pepper diversity, Grapevine domestication, Vanilla diversity
- A global database of diversified farming effects on biodiversity and yield. Always good to have the data.
- Dietary agrobiodiversity for improved nutrition and health outcomes within a transitioning indigenous Solomon Island food system. Maybe we should have a database of diversified farming effects on health and nutrition too?
- Exploring ‘beyond-food’ opportunities for biocultural conservation in urban forest gardens. Always good to have more trees.
- Community seed network in an era of climate change: dynamics of maize diversity in Yucatán, Mexico. Always good to have landraces. And neighbours.
- Microbe-dependent heterosis in maize. Maize hybrids need microbes.
- Assessment of genetic diversity and population structure of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) field genebank: A step towards molecular-assisted germplasm conservation. 30% seems a lot for a core collection. But it’s good to have the data.
- Sources of resistance to Pseudocercospora fijiensis, the cause of black Sigatoka in banana. 11 resistant accessions out of 95 seems pretty good, on the other hand.
- GWAS unveils features between early- and late-flowering pearl millets. Based on a national-level core collection in Senegal. Presumably this will scale?
- Germplasm Collection, Genetic Resources, and Gene Pools in Alfalfa. Lots of work has been done. More work is needed on the wild relatives though.
- Assessment and modeling using machine learning of resistance to scald (Rhynchosporium commune) in two specific barley genetic resources subsets. Fancy maths helps to identify the barley genebank accessions you really need.
- Strategic malting barley improvement for craft brewers through consumer sensory evaluation of malt and beer. More fancy maths, this time applied to a hedonic data in the service of beer. Germplasm evaluation we can all get behind. No FIGS, alas.
- Large-scale whole-genome resequencing unravels the domestication history of Cannabis sativa. 4 genetic groups: primordial (located in China, not Central Asia, and going back 12,000 years), 2 medicinal, 1 fibre. Now for the hedonic evaluation.
- The Origins of the Apple in Central Asia. Probably domesticated to cope with the munchies.
- Genetic Divergence and Population Structure in Weedy and Cultivated Broomcorn Millets (Panicum miliaceum L.) Revealed by Specific-Locus Amplified Fragment Sequencing (SLAF-Seq). There are interesting genetic differences between wild and feral forms, and between eastern and central-western cultivated forms. The Silk Road trifecta.
- Global range expansion history of pepper (Capsicum spp.) revealed by over 10,000 genebank accessions. Spoke too soon. The Silk Road had a role in pepper movement too. Among other trade routes. Interesting, and unsurprising, that genes for pungency show distinct geographic patterns.
- Genomic evidence supports an independent history of Levantine and Eurasian grapevines. First domestication in the Caucasus, and then in the Levant, but not clear if from local sources. No word on hedonic evaluation.
- Genotyping-By-Sequencing diversity analysis of international Vanilla collections uncovers hidden diversity and enables plant improvement. Belize seems to be a real hotspot. The Silk Road not involved.
Boffins unravel mandarins
I was just going to include the paper Diversification of mandarin citrus by hybrid speciation and apomixis in a forthcoming Brainfood, but the very different approaches taken in the two articles on the paper that I have seen convinced me to give it a bit more space.
The piece in The Packer has very much the industry take, and highlights the contribution of the University of Florida authors: this new information will make breeding easier, including to fight citrus greening.
On the other hand, the press release from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology makes much more of how the paper unravels the origin of shiikuwasha and tachibana, which are culturally important citrus fruits in Japan, though not very significant economically.
Something for everyone.