- Survival seed bank in the news again. Must be Christmas.
- Turkish nibbles: wine, pictachios. That wine one will no doubt run and run.
- How to make sure nutrition gets a seat at the agricultural development table. And Danny breaks it down for ya.
- What leads to spurts in conservation effort? In situ only, but instructive.
- Sesame is big business in Ethiopia.
- Boffins find yet another bit of DNA that will save the world.
Nibbles: Desert afforestation, Breadfruit, Sustainable tea, Biofortification, Cassava breeding, Wheat breeding, Ancient microbrewery
- The Sahara Forest Project: what could possibly go wrong?
- Maybe they should try breadfruit. Or avocados. Or ask this guy for advice.
- Not for all the sustainable tea in China!
- Or all the high-Fe pearl millet in India.
- Or all the wild chickens in South Asia.
- Cassava gets the genomic selection treatment. Maybe wheat too?
- Did someone mention beer?
Nibbles: Old rice, New quinoa, Fishy stuff, Cropland landscapes, Forest landscapes, Old seed, Superdomestication, Intensification
- Youth compiles list of rare and extinct rice varieties of Assam. Maybe he should look at weedy rice too?
- Meanwhile, American farmers are learning to grow quinoa, probably including some rare varieties.
- The smelliest fish in the world. No traceability needed for that one, I guess.
- Cropland getting mapped. Presumably including the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). Help needed by both, by the way.
- Follow the forest discussions at COP18. High on the agenda: what is a landscape? It’s what you study when you’re being holistic, no? Anyway, there’s got to be a connection to the previous links.
- Boffins find a genetic marker for old seed. Will need to Brainfood this one.
- Pat Heslop-Harrison breaks down superdomestication for you.
- SRI gets a scaling up. What could possibly go wrong?
Nibbles: Fungi, Fireblight, Flood Relief, Irrational Ghanaian men, Symposium, Dust Bowl Blues, SRI, Brazil’s agro-policy
- Where do new mushrooms come from? Hint: domestication of wild species has not stopped.
- And resistance to fireblight in apples? Hint: a single specimen of an old variety.
- How about help for flood-stricken Nigerian farmers? Hint: a gene bank!
- Where do people get gender in agriculture all wrong? Hint: women may bring home the bacon, but if that threatens their husband’s status, rationality flies out the door.
- Where, from 10-13 December, can you learn about “Crops from the past and new crops in adressing (sic) the challenges of the XXI century”? Hint: Córdoba, Spain.
- Where did the Dust Bowl go? Hint: it never went away.
- Where to get the straight dope on System of Rice Intensification? Hint: an SRI researcher may not be unbiased.
- Where are government and civil society elaborating a National Plan for Agroecology and Organic Production? Hint: a river runs through it.
Brainfood: Pig genome, Turkey genome, Big genomes, Maize genome, Potato improvement, Mango diversity, Coconut germination
- Analyses of pig genomes provide insight into porcine demography and evolution. More wild diversity in Asia, suggesting origin there, followed by migration to Europe. Separate domestication in SE Asia and Europe, followed by geneflow.
- Whole genome SNP discovery and analysis of genetic diversity in Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Lot less diverse than chicken. Or pig. Commercial breed even less diverse.
- Why size really matters when sequencing plant genomes. We must not shy away from the big genomes.
- QTL mapping in three tropical maize populations reveals a set of constitutive and adaptive genomic regions for drought tolerance. Eureka!
- Crops that feed the world 8: Potato: are the trends of increased global production sustainable? Maybe. But can you guess what will be needed? Nice review of genebank holdings and improvement strategies and aims.
- Physico-chemical Characterization of Unexploited Mango Diversity in Sub-mountane Zone of Northern India. 28 varieties in the Punjab, with all kinds of different uses.
- Germination Rate is the Significant Characteristic Determining Coconut Palm Diversity. Natural and artificial selection associated with different rates of germination (as well as other phenotypic traits of course).