- Global dispersal and adaptive evolution of domestic cattle: a genomic perspective. The scope of adaptation is pretty amazing, and has been aided by introgression from wild relatives.
- The genomic natural history of the aurochs. Which is just as well because the initial diversity of the domesticate was probably rather limited, at least in Europe.
- The Population History of Domestic Sheep Revealed by Paleogenomes. Early domesticated sheep genomes were pretty dynamic too, sometimes in parallel with shepherds and sometimes not.
- Late pre-Hispanic fog oasis settlements and long-term human occupation on the Peruvian central coast from satellite imagery. No cattle or sheep in pre-Hispanic lomas, but plenty of camelids and crops.
- American sweet potato and Asia-Pacific crop experimentation during early colonisation of temperate-climate Aotearoa/New Zealand. One of those crops was in Aotearoa by the 14th century, which is amazing.
- Musa species in mainland Southeast Asia: From wild to domesticate. Even the very wild species are affected by human use.
- Landscape genomics reveals genetic signals of environmental adaptation of African wild eggplants. Environment is not the main driver of selection, but still pretty important and thus useful in breeding. Kinda like cattle?
- Current status of global conservation and characterisation of wild and cultivated Brassicaceae genetic resources. Gotta conserve those wild relatives probably though, if they are to be used.
- Genome-wide assessment of genetic variation and population structure in cultivated vanilla from Madagascar. The results of a breeding programme 80 years ago involving wild relatives can be seen in the current structure of diversity.
Nibbles: CWR double, Banana threats, Banana collecting, Rice breeding, Cassava breeding, SADC livestock genebank, Community seedbank, Sunflower mapping, Restoration
- Why we need crop wild relatives.
- No, really, we need crop wild relatives.
- The banana is in trouble.
- Which is why we need to conserve banana wild relatives and landraces.
- Lots of wild relatives are conserved in the IRRI genebank mentioned in this Guardian article on breeding low glycemic index and high protein rice. Some of them may even have been used in this work. May look that up one day.
- I doubt that IITA used wild relatives in breeding these high quality cassava varieties, but there’s always a first time, and there may even be some in its genebank. I should probably look but I don’t have time for this rabbit hole today.
- And livestock get conserved in genebanks too, though not as much as crops. I’m really not sure how many livestock wild relatives are in the world’s genebanks, but my guess is not many.
- Farmers conserve crop (and livestock) diversity too, of course. And sometimes even their wild relatives.
- It’s amazing what can be done from space to figure out what farmers are growing. This is an example of sunflower in Ukraine, but one day we’ll even be able to locate crop wild relatives, I’m sure.
- To finish off, a reminder that we need conserved seed of wild species for more than just breeding: restoration too.
Brainfood: Pacific plant use, Rapa Nui crops, E African crops, Cotton domestication, Fertile Crescent Neolithic, Dutch Neolithic, S Italy crops, Rice domestication, Maize domestication
- Human dispersal and plant processing in the Pacific 55 000–50 000 years ago. There was more to the peopling of the Pacific than seafaring.
- Identification of breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) and South American crops introduced during early settlement of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), as revealed through starch analysis. Though seafaring took these people all the way to South America, it sees.
- Early agriculture and crop transitions at Kakapel Rockshelter in the Lake Victoria region of eastern Africa. A bit like Rapa Nui, Lake Victoria got crops from both west and east over time.
- Cotton and post-Neolithic investment agriculture in tropical Asia and Africa, with two routes to West Africa. Funny they didn’t find cotton at the Lake Victoria site.
- Drawing diffusion patterns of Neolithic agriculture in Anatolia. Itinerant expert harvesters spread agriculture into Anatolia. Maybe around Africa too, who knows.
- Early animal management in northern Europe: multi-proxy evidence from Swifterbant, the Netherlands. Early farmers in northern Europe managed separate herds of cattle in different ways alongside crops. What, itinerant expert livestock herders too?
- Introduction, spread and selective breeding of crops: new archaeobotanical data from southern Italy in the early Middle Ages. Sicily is a bit like Rapa Nui and Lake Victoria.
- Rice’s trajectory from wild to domesticated in East Asia. Rice domestication pushed back to about the same time as the Fertile Crescent. No word on the role of expert harvesters.
- Archaeological findings show the extent of primitive characteristics of maize in South America. Maize arrived in lowland South America in a pre-domesticated state, and stayed like that for a long time. That’s a long way for expert harvesters to go.
Brainfood: Ag research ROI, CGIAR & climate change, Crop species diversity, Training plant breeders, AI & plant breeding, Wheat breeding review, Wheat landraces, CIMMYT wheat breeding, Wheat D genome, Forages pre-breeding, Impact of new varieties, Two long-term barley experiment, High protein peas, Watermelon super-pangenome, Resynthesizing mustard, Consumer preference and breeding
- Benefit–Cost Analysis of Increased Funding for Agricultural Research and Development in the Global South. Fancy model says funding agricultural research is great value for money. Ok, let’s see if we can find some examples.
- Exploring CGIAR’s efforts towards achieving the Paris Agreement’s climate-change targets. Yeah, but in designing such research to mitigate climate change there should be more complete integration of food-systems perspectives.
- Crop species diversity: A key strategy for sustainable food system transformation and climate resilience. Now there’s a nice thing to integrate into your climate change adaptation and integration research.
- Cultivating success: Bridging the gaps in plant breeding training in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Gonna need more plant breeders also, though.
- Artificial intelligence in plant breeding. Yeah, and probably more artificial intelligence too.
- Wheat genetic resources have avoided disease pandemics, improved food security, and reduced environmental footprints: A review of historical impacts and future opportunities. Great advances have been made (even without AI) by wheat breeders, but there’s still a lot of untapped diversity out there.
- Harnessing landrace diversity empowers wheat breeding. For example in the A. E. Watkins landrace collection.
- Enhanced radiation use efficiency and grain filling rate as the main drivers of grain yield genetic gains in the CIMMYT elite spring wheat yield trial. Gotta wonder if there’s a limit though.
- Origin and evolution of the bread wheat D genome. Maybe we can squeeze a bit more out of the D genome. I wonder what AI says about that.
- The Role of Crop Wild Relatives and Landraces of Forage Legumes in Pre-Breeding as a Response to Climate Change. As above, but for a bunch of forages.
- Stakeholder Insights: A Socio-Agronomic Study on Varietal Innovation Adoption, Preferences, and Sustainability in the Arracacha Crop (Arracacia xanthorrhiza B.). Here’s an interesting methodology to evaluate the impact of new varieties designed and developed by AI (or not).
- Deep genotyping reveals specific adaptation footprints of conventional and organic farming in barley populations — an evolutionary plant breeding approach. An initial, diverse barley population is allowed to adapt to contrasting organic and conventional conditions for 2 decades and diverges considerably genetically as a result. Don’t need AI to predict that. Perhaps more surprisingly, analysis suggests organic-adapted populations need to be selected for root traits to catch up in yield.
- Natural selection drives emergent genetic homogeneity in a century-scale experiment with barley. What is it with barley breeding and long-term experiments? This one shows that a hundred years of natural selection has massively narrowed genetic diversity. Why aren’t there long-term wheat experiments? Or are there?
- Association study of crude seed protein and fat concentration in a USDA pea diversity panel. Really high protein peas are possible. No word on whether kids will like them any better. Let’s check again in a hundred years?
- Telomere-to-telomere Citrullus super-pangenome provides direction for watermelon breeding. Forget sweetness and disease resistance, maybe one of these wild species will help us grasp the holy grail of seedlessness. Wait, let me check on the whole cost-benefit thing for this.
- An indigenous germplasm of Brassica rapa var. yellow NRCPB rapa 8 enhanced resynthesis of Brassica juncea without in vitro intervention. Sort of like that wheat D genome thing, but for mustard. I do wonder why we don’t try crop re-synthesis a lot more.
- Special issue: Tropical roots, tubers and bananas: New breeding tools and methods to meet consumer preferences. Why involving farmers in all of the above could be a good idea.
What did Jesus eat?
Atlas Obscura: Jesus never ate bananas.
Smithsonian: Hold my Lava Flow.