- Livestock grazing boosts plant diversity in the Greater Serengeti–Mara Ecosystem. Livestock can be good for biodiversity conservation. But can its diversity be conserved too? Let’s see.
- Conservation and Management of Animal Genetic Resources in the Context of African Livestock Production Systems: The Case for In Situ and Ex Situ Conservation. “The multi-stakeholder breeders-researchers-decision-makers approach remains the most robust solution for sound management and preservation of biological units.” What, no farmers and local communities? No, that’s unfair: community-based conservation is discussed. But it doesn’t feel as central to the whole thing as it should be, somehow.
- Genetic Diversity, Adaptation, Wild Introgression, and Coat Color Mutation of Golden Yak. After all, local communities have maintained the golden yak reasonably well.
- Caprine dairy exploitation on the Iranian Plateau from the seventh millennium BC. Not to mention goats in Iran, and for thousands of years…
- Old goats: 3,000 years of genetic connectivity of the domestic goat in Ireland. …and in Ireland, though for not quite as long, admittedly.
- Dogs were widely distributed across western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic. And local communities have been managing dog populations since way before farming even.
- The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago. Also, local communities managed early cats separately in the Levant and Egypt. Much later than dogs, but that’s cats for you.
- A microbiome catalog of Chinese traditional artisanal cheeses provides insights into functional and microbial diversity. And don’t forget to conserve the associated microbiome too. I wonder what golden yak cheese is like.
Brainfood: Diversity of Sugarcane, Rice, Lentils, Olives, Sweetpotato, Cassava, Beans, Buckwheat, Pigeon pea, Landscapes
- The genomic footprints of wild Saccharum species trace domestication, diversification, and modern breeding of sugarcane. The genome of modern sugarcane is a mosaic of wild introgressions, including one from an unknown source.
- Evolutionary histories of functional mutations during the domestication and spread of japonica rice in Asia. Selection by biotic stresses acted differently on standing variation in rice across geographic regions. Colour me surprised.
- Ancient DNA from lentils (Lens culinaris) illuminates human-plant-culture interactions in the Canary Islands. Local lentils trace back a thousand years in the Canaries.
- An olive parentage atlas: founder cultivars, regional diversification, and implications for breeding programs. Modern cultivars derive from a surprisingly small set of founding genotypes…
- Intraspecific variation and phenotypic plasticity of olive varieties in response to contrasting environmental conditions. …but cultivated olives maintain high within-species variation and plasticity, enabling adaptation across Mediterranean environments.
- Deciphering the Origins of Commercial Sweetpotato Genotypes Using International Genebank Data. One Brazilian sweetpotato traced back to a CIP accession with a different name, but others did not match anything in the genebank.
- Exploring genetic diversity and selective signatures, a journey through Colombian cassava’s landscape. Colombia’s farmers and environments have shaped its cassava diversity. No word on whether any of it traces back to the CIAT genebank.
- Novel germplasm of tepary and other Phaseolus bean wild relatives from dry areas of southwestern USA. The available genepool for bean breeding gets a welcome boost.
- Insight into root system architecture of buckwheat through genome-wide association mapping-first study. Want drought-resilient, high-yielding buckwheat varieties? Here are the genes — and genotypes — to play with. So the available genepool doesn’t need a boost?
- Non-destructive prediction of nitrogen, iron and zinc content in diverse common bean seeds from a genebank using near-infrared spectroscopy. High-throughput, non-destructive phenotyping methods capture nutritional trait variation across a bean core collection. Wild teparies unavailable for comment.
- Germplasm exploration and digital phenotyping reveal indigenous diversity and farmer preferences in pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.) for climate-smart breeding. Not all phenotyping can be high-throughput, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful, at least in pigeon peas.
- Agricultural landscape genomics to increase crop resilience. Could have been applied to all of the above, I guess.
Nibbles: Restoration, Monitoring, CARDI, Margot Forde, Warwick, Slow Beans 2025, Lonicera
- Africa needs good forest seeds.
- And genetic monitoring of the resulting plantings, probably.
- The Caribbean also wants quality seed, and thinks a mobile seed bank is the way to get it.
- The only mobile things about New Zealand’s genebank are its collectors.
- A very mobile donation to the UK’s vegetable genebank.
- Nothing very mobile about Slow Beans 2025, but that’s the point.
- The long journey of honeysuckle.
Guardian of a (nearly) forgotten staple honoured
The National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) awarded Dr. Diane Ragone, founder and director emerita of NTBG’s Breadfruit Institute 1, the 2024 David Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration. Dr. Ragone gave this presentation at the award ceremony, sharing her four-decade journey exploring, conserving, and promoting breadfruit.
Nibbles: Fiona Hay, Richard Ellis, FAO exhibition, Peasants, Wheat breeding, Svalbard, Søren Ejlersen, Ephraim Bull, Heirloom apples, Caffeine, Collards history
- Dr Fiona Hay, seed scientist, on why we need genebanks, including seed banks.
- Prof. Richard Ellis retires. A genebank legend, as Fiona would probably agree.
- FAO exhibition goes From Seeds to Foods. By way of genebanks, no doubt.
- And peasants, of course. No, it’s not a derogatory word, settle down.
- Can Green Revolution breeding approaches (and genebanks) help peasants deal with climate change?
- Even genebanks need a back-up plan though.
- New Mexico genebank helps out Danish chef.
- The history of the Concord grape and its foxiness. Chefs intrigued.
- The history of Aport and Amasya apples. No foxiness involved, as far as I know. Genebanks? Probably.
- The origin of caffeine. Now do foxiness.
- Where did collards come from anyway? No, not genebanks. Bloody historians, always re-writing history.