- Translating High-Throughput Phenotyping into Genetic Gain. More to it than cool drones. Although those are not to be sneezed at.
- A guide to sequence your favorite plant genomes. Someone may already have what you need.
- Towards the Development of Perennial Barley for Cold Temperate Climates—Evaluation of Wild Barley Relatives as Genetic Resources. H. bulbosum is the best bet. So far.
- Communicating plant genetic resources for food and agriculture to the public — A study of grant-receivers with demonstration-projects in the Danish Rural Development Programme. It can be done.
- Farmers’ participatory selection of new rice varieties to boost production under temperate agro-ecosystems. It can be done.
- Assessing the Impacts of Agrobiodiversity Maintenance on Food Security Among Farming Households in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone. Help the poor.
- Contribution of Traditional Farming to Ecosystem Services Provision: Case Studies from Slovakia. Traditional systems more diverse and balanced in provision of ecosystem services than intensive modern systems. The problem is that pesky production service. Yeah, but about that…
- Bright spots in agricultural landscapes: Identifying areas exceeding expectations for multifunctionality and biodiversity. Small is beautiful.
- Why should we save the wild relatives of domesticated animals? Because we can.
- Tracking trends in the extinction risk of wild relatives of domesticated species to assess progress against global biodiversity targets. And because we should.
- Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) diversity of cassava genotypes in relation to cassava brown streak disease in Mozambique. Some Mozambican landraces are very similar to resistant Tanzanian landraces.
- Generic names and mislabeling conceal high species diversity in global fisheries markets. DNA barcoding reveals that 300 “snapper” samples are in fact 67 species from disparate fisheries. Use Latin names, folks!
Brainfood: Potato errors, Cryo maize, Fish ABS, Salamander poaching, Better niches, Diverse urban farms, Old growth, Space seeds, Breeding networks, Mating systems
- Genetic Identity in Genebanks: Application of the SolCAP 12K SNP Array in Fingerprinting and Diversity Analysis in the Global In Trust Potato Collection. 11 mismatches between 250 original samples and their putative in vitro counterparts.
- Maize seed cryo-storage modifies chlorophyll, carotenoid, protein, aldehyde and phenolics levels during early stages of germination. But do the effects last?
- Sharing aquatic genetic resources across jurisdictions: playing ‘chicken’ in the sea. Fish resources need cooperative governance too.
- Imminent extinction in the wild of the world’s largest amphibian. Because it’s a luxury food, believe it or not.
- Community structure informs species geographic distributions. Include coexisting species in niche models for better results.
- Increasing plant diversity with border crops reduces insecticide use and increases crop yield in urban agriculture. Planting soybeans, maize and vegetables around rice was bad for pests and good for profits in Shanghai.
- Where are Europe’s last primary forests? Mountains, mainly.
- Seeds in space. Orbiting Svalbard, anyone?
- Resistance Genes in Global Crop Breeding Networks. Networks for cassava, potato, rice, and wheat “are clustered due to phytosanitary and intellectual property regulations, and linked through CGIAR hubs.”
- Plant Mating Systems Often Vary Widely Among Populations. One estimate is never enough.
Brainfood: Cassava domestication, Phylogenomics review, Flavour breeding, Anticolonialism, Arid beet, Arid Vigna, Arid maize, ABS double, Trout stem cells
- Patterns of nuclear and chloroplast genetic diversity and structure of manioc along major Brazilian Amazonian rivers. No structure related to river basins. Separate histories for sweet and bitter types, with the sweet domesticated and spreading first.
- Practical considerations for plant phylogenomics. Use the right tool for the job.
- The genetics of fruit flavour preferences. Here’s a “molecular roadmap to flavour improvement,” breeders. Now go crazy.
- Beyond Culinary Colonialism: Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Liberal Multiculturalism, and the Control of Gastronomic Capital. Multiculturalism is incompatible with food sovereignty.
- Predicting genotypes environmental range from genome‐environment associations. Fraction of aridity-associated alleles in wild beet could accurately predict adaptation to aridity in independent set of cultivated individuals.
- Diversity of drought tolerance in the genus Vigna. No word on genotypes. But wilds more tolerant of drought in Vigna too.
- Identification of Drought, Heat, and Combined Drought and Heat Tolerant Donors in Maize. Only 2 out of 300 inbreds are resistant to both drought and heat. No word on how teosinte does.
- Benefit sharing mechanisms for agricultural genetic diversity use and in-situ conservation. Show me the money.
- The Nagoya Protocol could backfire on the Global South. It’s not just about the money.
- Invasion of a legume ecosystem engineer in a cold biome alters plant biodiversity. Biosafety first.
- Interspecific germ cell transplantation: a new light in the conservation of valuable Balkan trout genetic resources? Maybe.
Nibbles: Cloisters, Plum breeding, Wild tomatoes, Phytosanitary regulations, Public breeding, EU regulations, Svalbard @10, Local grains, Chips, ICRAF double
- Medieval monastery gardens deconstructed.
- Burbank’s plums decoded.
- The wild tomatoes of the Galapagos evaluated.
- Germplasm exchange expedited.
- Public sector plant breeding advocated.
- Farmer-saved seeds saved?
- Svalbard Global Seed Vault celebrated.
- Local flour milled.
- Potato chips (crisps) invented.
- Indigenous trees taken seriously. Very seriously.
Brainfood: Genebanks genomics, Improving forages, 3000 rices, Sweet potato dispersal, Diversity on farm double, Herbaria double, Phenotyping box, Invasives, Meta-meta-analysis, Rice domestication, Soil depth
- Role of genomics in promoting the utilization of plant genetic resources in genebanks. Genebanks don’t need to do genomics themselves to benefit from genomics.
- Improving the Yield and Nutritional Quality of Forage Crops. Case in point.
- Genomic variation in 3,010 diverse accessions of Asian cultivated rice. Case in point. Multiple independent domestications. Tomorrow, the world.
- Sweet potato dispersal or human transport? Maybe no evidence one way or another after all. Rebuttal of: Reconciling Conflicting Phylogenies in the Origin of Sweet Potato and Dispersal to Polynesia. And the counter to the rebuttal. This genomics stuff not so easy after all.
- Review: Meta-analysis of the association between production diversity, diets, and nutrition in smallholder farm households. It’s not always there. But that would have been a high bar.
- Agricultural diversification as an important strategy for achieving food security in Africa. Case in point. More diverse households and farming systems are more food secure, but only up to a point, and it depends on various factors. 43% of African cropland will be difficult to diversify.
- Using herbaria to study global environmental change. Have been used to monitor the effects of climate change, habitat change, pollution and invasives on plants.
- Green Digitization: Online Botanical Collections Data Answering Real‐World Questions. Gotta get the stuff digitized first though.
- The ‘PhenoBox’, a flexible, automated, open‐source plant phenotyping solution. Somebody mention digitizing?
- Dissecting the null model for biological invasions: A meta-analysis of the propagule pressure effect. The success of aliens is down to their numbers. Wonder if it works for pest and disease organisms too.
- Are systematic reviews and meta-analyses still useful research? We are not sure. All righty then. Scrap the above.
- Shattering or not shattering: that is the question in domestication of rice (Oryza sativa L.). From one of the authors, Debarati Chakraborty: Loss of shattering through sh4 is not a crucial step for rice domestication. Genetics, cultural anthropology and archaeology suggests that primitive agrarians were dependent on wild or semi-domesticated shattering rice.
- Rooting for food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa probably hasn’t the rootable soil depth for monster maize yields.